The Nobel Peace Prize 2010 - Liu Xiaobo

Liu Xiaobo should today receive the Nobel Peace Price 2010 in Oslo, Norway. However neither he nor his wife Liu Xia will be present to receive the prize due to their imprisonment and house arrest.

The Nobel Committee`s press release from October 8th tells:

For over two decades, Liu Xiaobo has been a strong spokesman for the application of fundamental human rights also in China. He took part in the Tiananmen protests in 1989; he was a leading author behind Charter 08, the manifesto of such rights in China which was published on the 60th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 10th of December 2008. The following year, Liu was sentenced to eleven years in prison and two years' deprivation of political rights for “inciting subversion of state power". Liu has consistently maintained that the sentence violates both China's own constitution and fundamental human rights.

The Nobel Peace Award comes as the last of many awards given to Liu Xiaobo

* Hellman-Hammett Grant (1990, 1996)
* Fondation de France Prize (2004): Award for Defending Freedom of Speech
* China Foundation on Democracy Education (2003): Outstanding Democratic Activist
* Hong Kong Human Rights Press Awards (2004, 2005, 2006)
* Excellent Award (2004) for an article Corrupted News is not News, published on Open  Magazine , January 2004 issue
* Grand Prize (2005) for an article Paradise of the Powerful, Hell of the Vulnerable on Open Magazine, September 2004 issue
* Excellent Award (2006) for The Causes and Ending of Shanwei Bloodshed on Open Magazine, January 2006
* Homo Homini Award (2009)
* PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award (2009)
* Hermann Kesten Award (2010)

As many others who have visited China many times since early 1995 and seen the progress of this huge country the last 15 years, I hope Article 35 of China's constitution which lays down that "Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration" will be lived up to for every citizens in one of the world's oldest civilizations with nearly 4,000 years of continuous history.