IMPRISONED LAUREATE LIU ILL WITH CANCER

Imprisoned Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate and dissident Liu Xiaobo has been transferred to a hospital after being diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer, his former lawyer said Monday.

The deteriorating health of China’s best-known political prisoner was immediately met with dismay by the country’s beleaguered community of rights activists and lawyers, who called it a blow to the democracy movement.

Liu, 61, pictured below, is receiving treatment at a hospital in the northeastern city of Shenyang, said lawyer Mo Shaoping. Liu was diagnosed on May 23 and prison authorities then gave him a medical parole, though it was not clear exactly when he was transferred to the hospital, Mo said.

Liu, a literary critic and China’s most prominent democracy campaigner, was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2009 after being convicted of inciting state subversion for writing and disseminating Charter 08, a manifesto calling for an end to single-party rule. The following year, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.