Chinese Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo Gets Parole After Cancer Diagnosis
Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo was released from prison on medical parole after being diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer, the Chinese government confirmed in a statement released late Monday. Sixty-one-year-old Xiaobo was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer in May, and was hospitalized soon after.
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"The No. 1 Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University (in Shenyang) has formed a medical team comprised of eight nationally renowned oncologists and drawn up a treatment plan," the statement said, CNN reported.
Xiaobo was the first Chinese citizen to win the Noble Peace Prize in 2010 for his long and peaceful campaign for human rights in the country. However, Xiabo could not receive the award in person as he was in prison at that time. He was represented by an empty chair at the ceremony.
Xiaobo first came into public prominence in 1989 during a suppression of protestors at Beijing’s Tiananmen Sqaure. He was arrested for two years and was released in 1991, according to a BBC report. During the agitation, Xiaobo was offered asylum in the Australian embassy. But he refused the offer and chose to stay in China to continue his fight for democracy. "The massacre in 1989 made a very deep impression on me," he said in an interview he gave to the BBC in 2008.
In 1996, he was sentenced for three years in a camp for speaking out about China's one-party political system. He, however, continued to discuss a range of taboo subjects including criticizing China's treatment of Tibetans. He received several recognitions for his work over the years.
Xiaobo was again arrested in 2008 after he co-authored a manifesto, "Charter 08". He called for a political change in China with his charter demanding freedom of expression, an independent judiciary and freedom of association. It was signed by over 300 Chinese human rights activists, reports said. Two days before the charter was due to be published, the police made a late-night raid on Xiaobo's home and took him away. His wife Liu Xia, at that time, said she could not initially find out what happened to him because the authorities did not initially agree that they took him.
Liu Xia has been under house arrest since her husband won the Nobel Prize in 2010 but she has never been charged. A video in which she can is seen crying and talking about her husband's condition was shared online late Monday. "(They) cannot perform surgery, cannot perform radiotherapy, cannot perform chemotherapy," Liu Xia said in the video. It was not clear when the video was filmed, Reuters reported.
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While Xiaobo has earned several acclaims for his work around the globe, most people in China have not heard about him due to the censorship of news in the country. His transfer to hospital by no means guarantees that his family and friends family will be able to visit him, the BBC report said.
U.S. has also called for Xiaobo’s release. "We call on the Chinese authorities to not only release Mr. Liu, but also to allow his wife, Ms Liu Xia, out of house arrest," Mary Beth Polley, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, was quoted as saying in the Reuters report.
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