Chinese Nobel peace prize winner in hospital

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 yesterday.

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, is receiving treatment at a hospital in the north-eastern city of Shenyang, lawyer Mo Shaoping said. Liu was diagnosed on May 23 and prison authorities then granted him 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 by the Norway-based Nobel committee, which cheered China’s fractured, persecuted dissident community and brought calls for Liu’s release.