Liu was serving an 11-year prison sentence for what the government called “incitement to subvert state power.” Liu has terminal cancer, his lawyer says.
Chinese authorities have granted dissident Liu Xiaobo medical parole, freeing the Nobel Peace Prize winner from prison because he has terminal liver cancer. Liu, 61, is being allowed to seek treatment in a hospital outside of prison. “According to his lawyer, Liu was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer while in prison last month, ” NPR’s Rob Schmitz reports from Hong Kong. ” [He] is being treated at a hospital in the northeastern city of Shenyang.” Liu is more than halfway through the 11-year sentence he received in 2009 for what the government called “incitement to subvert state power.” His main infraction was helping to write a six-page manifesto titled, which called for an end to one-party rule in China along with direct elections and the separation of powers. The document states, for instance, “Public institutions should be used for the public.” A veteran activist and academic, Liu traveled from the U.
