NEW YORK – Amnesty International has criticised China’s continued imprisonment of new Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo and called for his release.
Liu, a dissident literary critic, was represented by an empty chair at the Nobel ceremony in Oslo, Norway, after China refused to allow him or any of his relatives to receive the prize in person.
China has described the award as a “political farce” and said it infringed upon China’s judicial sovereignty.
“Today, the world is witnessing another of China’s shameAful acts of repression against Liu Xiaobo,” Amnesty International United?States executive director Larry Cox said. “But he is not alone.”
“Like Liu Xiaobo, millions of people worldwide live in fear of persecution by repressive governments or armed factions and millions more suffer extreme deprivation.”
Cox last Friday appealed for the release of Liu and other prisoners of conscience as he announced the start of the group’s annual global letter-writing campaign.
Every year, the organisation recruits people from around the world to send letters to governments pressing for the release of many prisoners of conscience.
Also at the campaign launch was former political prisoner Saad Ibrahim of Egypt and Amnesty International supporter Patrick Stewart, a renowned stage actor who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning organisation that campaigns for human rights worldwide.
China repeated its claim yesterday that the world was meddling in its affairs after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in absentia to imprisoned democracy activist Liu Xiaobo. The ceremony was censored in China, which has seen a clampdown on dissidents and some news websites blocked in recent days.
Beijing police in recent days have hustled many activists away from the capital. (AP)
