Jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, an award which sparked a furious backlash from Beijing and renewed Western calls for his immediate release. Norwegian Nobel Committee president Thorbjoern Jagland holds up a photograph of jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. The jailed dissident was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for championing reform and human rights in a move that is certain to anger Beijing.
The writer and university professor was honoured "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China," Norwegian Nobel Committee president Thorbjoern Jagland said in his announcement.
"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has long believed that there is a close connection between human rights and peace," he added.
In the wake of the announcement, both Germany and France called on China to immediately release Liu from prison.
"The government would like to see him released soon and receive his prize in person," German government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters.
But China said the Norwegian Nobel committee had "violated" the integrity of the Peace Prize, saying Liu had broken Chinese law and insisting his "actions run contrary to the purpose of the Nobel Peace Prize."
"By awarding the prize to this person, the Nobel committee has violated and blasphemed the award," Beijing said in a statement.
Liu, 54, was last December sentenced to 11 years behind bars for subversion, following the 2008 release of "Charter 08", a manifesto for reform signed by more than 300 Chinese intellectuals, academics and writers.
Liu, who has been detained several times before, was also a key figure in the pro-democracy student movement in China in 1989, which was brutally crushed by Chinese authorities and culminated in the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
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Poster Comment:
This news was surprising - not that the Chinese dissident didn't deserve the prize (he definitely does); but that the Nobel committee would figuratively thumb their nose at China.
They had to have known this would piss China off.
Hats off to the committee on this one - they got this one right.
And to China? Welcome to world empire status - enjoy!
