Nobel Peace Prize, no pleasant Surprise for chinese


Protestors demanding a release of Liu, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient (Photo courtesy of BBC)

By Joseph Juhn
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – When a group of people – two dozen bloggers, rights lawyers and academics – gathered at a Beijing restaurant to celebrate the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, the police rushed in and arrested them.

Although 10 of the 20 people who had been picked up were released, three of them were given eight-day jail terms under the charge of “disturbing the peace” and seven were escorted out of Beijing, according to Zhang Zuhua, an activist who is in touch with the detainees.


Liu Xiaobo, the 54-year-old scholar and author, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his outstanding contribution to human rights, is currently serving an 11-year sentence on charges of “inciting subversion of state power” imposed after an allegedly unfair trial. 

Liu is widely recognized amongst activists as a prominent government critic who has repeatedly called for human rights protections, political accountability and democratization in China.

Ever since the Norwegian Committee announced the winner of the prize, the Chinese government reacted with unrestrained anger.

In a series of attempt to downplay the awarding of the prize, the chinese Government called in the Norwegian ambassador in Beijing for a dressing down, placed a number dissidents under house arrest and blocked nearly all Internet sites and news media from disseminating any information regarding the Nobel Peace Prize.

It was impossible for Chinese citizens or Web surfers to learn about the honor bestowed on their countryman. Plugging “Liu Xiaobo” or “Nobel Peace Prize” into a search engine resulted in blank screens and error messages.

Only the Global Times, an English-language newspaper controlled by the Chinese government, contained information on the prize, although in completely contrasting tone.

Liu, the newspaper’s unsigned editorial said, is “an incarcerated Chinese criminal.” Awarding him the prize was a “paranoid choice” that was “meant to irritate China.” The Nobel Peace Prize has been “degraded into a political tool that serves an anti-China purpose.

“It seems that instead of peace or unity in China, the Nobel committee would like to see the country split by an ideological rift, or better yet, collapse like the Soviet Union,” the editorial said.

Zhou Xiaozheng, director of the law of Sociology department at People’s University in Beijing, when asked about to which extent people are aware of either Liu or the Nobel Peace Prize, said, “[t]hey don’t know, and they don’t want to know, because it’s dangerous to know.”

“As soon as I hear a foreign journalist wants to know about the Nobel Peace Prize, I can sense the danger,” said Zhou.

In response to these hardline approaches by the Chinese government to silence the award, Catherine Baber, Deputy Asia-Pacific Director at Amnesty International, expressed concerns.

“This award can only make a real difference if it prompts more international pressure on China to release Liu, along with the numerous other prisoners of conscience languishing in Chinese jails for exercising their right to freedom of expression,” she said.

For more information, please see:

The New York Times – China, Angered by Peace Prize, Blocks Celebration – 10 October 2010

Amnesty International – LIU XIAOBO’S NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WIN PUTS SPOTLIGHT ON CHINA RIGHTS VIOLATIONS – 8 October 2010

The Los Angeles Times – Chinese media stay resolutely silent on Nobel winner – 10 October 2010

Author: Impunity Watch Archive