Liu Xiaobo death: Don’t interfere, China tells world
BEIJING:China responded on Friday to international censure over the death of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo by describing the decision to award him the peace prize in 2010 as “blasphemy”, and said it had lodged protests with several countries for meddling in its “domestic affairs” by speaking up for the pro-democracy activist.
Liu, 61, a key leader of the Tiananmen Square movement, died of multi-organ failure on Thursday night at a hospital at Shenyang in China.
He was recently granted medical parole after being diagnosed with liver cancer but China ignored international calls to allow him to travel abroad for treatment. Instead, he was admitted to the hospital in Shenyang where two doctors from the US and Germany were allowed to check him.
“The hospital where Liu Xiaobo received medical treatment has done its best to save his life,” his main doctor Liu Yunpeng was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.
“Since the day Liu Xiaobo was admitted, the hospital has made every effort in his treatment," Liu Yunpeng told a news conference late on Thursday night.
China’s decision not to allow Liu to go abroad, despite his own request, was widely criticised by the international community. Chinese censors also scrubbed social media networks of candles, RIP and other tributes to Liu on Friday as part of efforts to silence discussion about the dissident’s death.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said China had protested to several countries and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein, among others, to express its discontent.
“Conferring the (Nobel peace) prize to such a person goes against the purposes of this award. It’s a blasphemy of the peace prize,” Geng said.
He said “all-out efforts” were made to treat Liu with “humanity and in accordance with the law”. That “accordance with the law” has been questioned by governments, rights groups, lawyers and activists.