Friday, December 9, 2011

China:

Nobel Winners Demand Release of Imprisoned Dissident

By EDWARD WONG
Published: December 9, 2011
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A group of five Nobel laureates has called on China to release Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned winner of the Nobel Peace Prize last year. In 2009, Mr. Liu was sentenced to 11 years on charges of trying to subvert the state. He was a main author of a manifesto circulated online, Charter 08, that called for gradual democratic reforms. His wife, Liu Xia, is under house arrest in Beijing.

The Nobel winners said in a statement on Thursday, “The international community seems to have forgotten that, a year after the award ceremony, Liu Xiaobo remains in prison in China and in harsh conditions.” The five Nobel winners calling for Mr. Liu’s release are Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ebadi, Jody Williams, Mairead Maguire and Betty Williams.

This year, a group of patriotic Chinese seeking to present an alternative to the Nobel Peace Prize awarded the second Confucius Peace Prize to Vladimir V. Putin, prime minister of Russia. On Friday, two Russian exchange students, Ekateryna Dakhova and Maria Ostasheako, accepted a 10-inch gold-plated statuette of Confucius in Beijing because Mr. Putin did not show up to collect the prize
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