Jailed Chinese Nobel Peace laureate 'speaks' from prison - Summary

Fri, 10 Dec 2010

Oslo - An empty chair served as a stark reminder of the absence of Nobel Peace Prize laureate, jailed Chinese political activist Liu Xiaobo, at Friday's ceremony at Oslo City Hall.

Liu's optimism about political change in China and calls for reconciliation were however strong themes in the award ceremony that was boycotted by China and several other nations.

The ceremony included a performance by a children's choir, in keeping with a wish Liu had managed to convey to organizers. A large portrait of the 54-year-old activist was displayed in the hall.

Liu is serving an 11-year sentence for sedition, a result of his role in organizing the Charter '08 manifesto democratic reform in China.

Nobel Committee head Thorbjorn Jagland said Liu was being honoured for his "long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."

Jagland expressed "regret" over the absence of Liu, who is "in isolation in a prison in north-east China" and also noted the absence of the laureate's wife Liu Xia and other close relatives.

After paying tribute to Liu and his efforts, Jagland placed the laureate's medal and diploma in the empty chair.

In the absence of an acceptance speech, Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann read a statement released by supporters of the activist after his sentencing a year ago.

In the document, titled "I Have No Enemies," Liu underlines the importance of the 1989 democracy movement in China - where he took part in a hunger strike - that ended with a crackdown in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. He observes that "the ghosts of June 4 (1989) have not yet been laid to rest."

He also says he is convinced that China will change and that "there is no force that can put an end to the human quest for freedom, and China will in the end become a nation ruled by law, where human rights reign supreme."

He also pays tribute to his wife, now under house arrest in Beijing, saying her love "is the sunlight that leaps over high walls and penetrates the iron bars of my prison window."

The Chinese government, angered by the selection of Liu as the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, called him a "criminal" and urged countries to stay away from the prize ceremony.

Representatives of least 15 countries were absent from Friday's ceremony, according to the Nobel Institute.

Beijing meanwhile blocked live broadcasts from Oslo by by foreign media.

The more than 1,000 guests and dignitaries at the ceremony included outgoing speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway.

In the US, President Barack Obama, last year's surprise winner of the coveted award, also called for Liu's release and stressed that he was "far more deserving of this award than I was."

Similar calls were issued by European Union foreign policy Catherine Ashton and former Czech president Vaclav Havel, a signatory of the Charter '77 petition for human rights in the former Communist country.

Jagland reminded guests of previous occasions when laureates were unable to collect the award in person, including 75 years ago when German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky won the award to the fury of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Russia's Andrei Sakharov in 1975, Poland's Lech Walesa in 1983, and Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar in 1991 were represented by relatives.

Jagland said the prize to Liu was not a prize against China and underlined that the country's growing power "entails increased responsibility" and it must be prepared to accept "criticism" - just as was the case for the United States in the past.

He referred to criticism voiced against the US over its role in the Vietnam War and the lack of civil and political rights for blacks Americans.

In 1964, the Peace Prize was awarded to US civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King, Jr, for his non-violent campaign for those rights, Jagland observed, adding "we can see the US grew stronger when the African-American people obtained their rights."

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the awards endowed by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite. A separate ceremony was due later Friday in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, for winners in the fields of medicine, chemistry, literature and economics.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/357584,speaks-prison-summary.html.