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The man and his thoughts

04.10.11

Less than a year before that, on December 25, 2009, he was found guilty in a Beijing court of "incitement to subvert state power". Perhaps Christmas Day was chosen for the sentencing in an attempt to keep it quiet. A year before Liu had been the main sponsor of Charter 08, a manifesto for human rights, democracy and rule of law in China that circulated online and was signed by thousands, before a crackdown by the government and Liu's arrest stopped it in its tracks.

Liu was in jail when he heard about the Nobel. At the award ceremony in Oslo he was represented by an empty chair, a custom from International PEN, the world association of writers, for recognising an imprisoned writer. Liu's wife Liu Xia was put under house arrest to stop her from going to Norway, as were other family and friends in China. Writers from the new, independent Chinese branch of PEN, of which Liu had been elected president in 2005, were also arrested. The Chinese government denounced the award of the prize to Liu, the first Nobel to a Chinese citizen, and did what it could to block information about it in China. There has been little news of Liu Xiaobo since. He has disappeared into China's black hole, to serve a sentence that runs until 2020, when he will be 65, if he makes it. He has serious health problems and limited access to reading and writing material. That's one way to kill a writer.

Source: The Australian