Critically ill Chinese dissident yearns to die in the sunshine, says friend

BRITAIN has called on China to permit Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize winner being held as a political prisoner, to seek treatment for his cancer abroad, as doctors said yesterday that he was in a “critical condition”.

Calls have been growing for China’s most well-known dissident to be allowed to leave the hospital where he is being treated amid tight security – with one family friend telling The Daily Telegraph he yearns to “die in the sunshine”. Mr Liu, jailed in 2009 for state subversion by calling for sweeping political reforms, was transferred from prison to a hospital in the north-eastern city of Shenyang last month.

Family members are known to have visited him, including his wife, Liu Xin, who authorities placed under house detention for several years. China had said that it would be “unsafe” to transfer Mr Liu, 61, but two foreign doctors who assessed him on Sunday said he could be moved.

The British Embassy in Beijing said: “The UK has repeatedly expressed serious concern at the treatment of Liu Xiaobo by the Chinese authorities.

“We continue to urge the Chinese authorities to ensure Liu Xiaobo has access to his choice of medical treatment, in a location of his choice, and to lift all restrictions on him and his wife.” But the Chinese foreign ministry said other countries should “respect China’s national sovereignty and refrain from interfering in China’s domestic affairs due to an individual case”.

The dissident became only the third person to receive a Nobel Peace award while imprisoned by his own government, and he could be the first to die in custody since tuberculosis killed Carl von Ossietzky, 48, a German pacifist, in 1938. The hospital treating Mr Liu said yesterday he was in a critical condition and that his tumour had grown and his liver was bleeding.

Hu Jia, an activist and family friend, said Mr Liu would have been encouraged after the two foreign doctors were allowed to visit him.

“It is like being in hell, and then suddenly two angels come and say they can take you out,” he said.

“He is dying. He knows he is dying, but he wants to die in the sunshine.”