Human rights groups and fellow dissidents react after Liu Xiaobo is transferred to hospital with late-stage liver cancer
China’s dissident community has expressed anger, shock and sadness that the country’s best-known political prisoner – the democracy activist and Nobel peace prize winner Liu Xiaobo – has been transferred to hospital after being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer.
Liu, 61, had been serving an 11-year prison sentence for inciting subversion of state power. His lawyer, Mo Shaoping, who has been in contact with Liu’s family, said he was now in the late stages of disease. Another of Liu’s lawyers, Shang Baojun, said he had been diagnosed on 23 May.
“This type of late-stage cancer is very difficult to treat. It would have been easier if it was discovered sooner, ” Shang said. “It’s extremely serious.”
News of Liu’s diagnosis was met with an outpouring of anger from activists in China and abroad.
“This is simply a political murder, this is how the Communist party deals with its enemies, a prisoner of conscience dying just outside a jail cell, ” said Hu Jia, a fellow activist who has known Liu for more than a decade and previously collaborated with him. “I’ ve been to prison in China. The medical care is terrible and I’ m sure China’s leaders were hoping for this outcome.”
In a rare statement, the Norwegian Nobel committee, which awarded Liu the prize in 2010, said: “Liu Xiaobo has fought a relentless struggle in favour of democracy and human rights in China and has already paid a heavy price. Chinese authorities carry a heavy responsibility if Liu Xiaobo, because of his imprisonment, has been denied necessary medical treatment.”
Liu is being treated by a team of eight doctors at the First Hospital of China Medical University in the north-eastern city of Shenyang, according to the provincial prison bureau, which also confirmed his medical parole.
Friends and family worry he may not receive the best care. He has asked to return to his home of Beijing to undergo medical treatment, but the authorities refused permission to do so.
“It adds injury to insult that Liu Xiaobo, who should never have been put in prison in the first place, has been diagnosed with a grave illness, ” said Patrick Poon, a China researcher at Amnesty International.
