This morning, in Oslo city hall's marble auditorium, an empty chair will stand in for a man who could not get there: Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate. A glittering ceremony will acknowledge Liu's fight for human rights and democracy in his homeland, but he will learn nothing of it. He will remain locked up in a Chinese prison for another 10 years for "subversion against the state." Even his relatives were prevented from leaving China to attend the ceremony in Oslo. Liu's wife is under house arrest; other family members are under police surveillance.
China has managed to distinguish itself even against the standards of Nazi Germany, a feat unmatched since 1936, when Germany prevented journalist Carl von Ossietzky from leaving the country to accept the Peace Prize.
The Nazi regime made do with keeping Ossietzky (or anyone representing him) away from the award ceremony, but China has gone further. It has demanded that other countries boycott the Oslo ceremony and then for good measure it hastily minted its own peace prize.
Read the entire story here.
Carl von Ossietzky
Liu Xiaobo
Both photos from Getty, about 75 years apart.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment