China fury over dissident's Nobel Peace Prize win

Jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize yesterday and the award was immediately condemned by China as honouring “a criminal”.

The award by the Norwegian Nobel Committee was for Mr Liu’s use of non-violence to demand fundamental human rights in his homeland.

Chinese state media immediately blacked out the news and Chinese government censors blocked Nobel prize reports from internet websites.

This year’s peace prize followed a long tradition of honouring dissidents around the world, although it was the first Nobel for China’s dissident community since it resurfaced after the country’s communist leadership launched economic but not political reforms three decades ago.

Mr Liu, 54, was sentenced last year to 11 years in prison for subversion. Unlike some in China’s persecuted dissident community, he has been an ardent advocate for peaceful, gradual political change rather than confrontation with the government.

The Nobel committee praised Mr Liu’s pacifist approach, ignoring not-so-subtle threats by Chinese diplomats even before the announcement that such a decision would result in strained ties with Norway.

The committee cited Mr Liu’s participation in the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989 and the Charter 08 document he recently co-authored, which called for greater freedom in China and an end to the Communist Party’s political dominance.

Chinese authorities would not allow access to Mr Liu yesterday. In Beijing, his wife expressed her joy at the news.

Surrounded by police at their Beijing apartment, Liu Xia was not allowed out to meet reporters. Instead she gave brief remarks by phone and text message, saying she was happy and that she planned to deliver the news to Liu at the prison, 300 miles away, today.

Hong Kong Cable Television quoted her in a Twitter message as saying that Mr Liu would draw encouragement from the award and she hoped to go to Norway to collect the prize if he could not.

“I believe that after the award, more people will put pressure on the Chinese side,” the message quoted her as saying.

China’s Foreign Ministry said the award should been used instead to promote international friendship and disarmament.

“Liu Xiaobo is a criminal who has been sentenced by Chinese judicial departments for violating Chinese law,” the statement said. Awarding the peace prize to Mr Liu “runs completely counter to the principle of the prize and is also a blasphemy to the peace prize.” It said the decision would damage relations between China and Norway.

In China, broadcasts of the announcement by CNN were blacked out. Internet sites removed coverage of the Nobel prizes, placed prominently in recent days for the science awards. Messages about “Xiaobo” to Sina Microblog, a Twitter-like service run by portal Sina.com, were quickly deleted.

The Nobel committee said China, as a growing economic and political power, needed to take more responsibility to protect the rights of its citizens.

“China has become a big power in economic terms as well as political terms, and it is normal that big powers should be under criticism,” prize committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said.