International liver experts to treat Nobel dissident freed from jail

CHINA HAS agreed to allow liver cancer experts from the US, Germany and other countries to join a medical team treating jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo following international criticism of Beijing’s handling of his case.

The judicial bureau in the north-eastern city where Liu is being treated said on Wednesday that his doctors had agreed to a request by his family for foreign experts to be consulted.

Liu, China’s best-known political prisoner, is being treated at a hospital in Shenyang for latestage liver cancer.

The bureau said the invited medics were “the most authoritative liver cancer treatment experts”, but gave no other details.

Following initial questions over how Liu had become so sick without having been previously diagnosed, authorities said they had assembled a team of eight Chinese specialists to oversee his treatment. Yet friends have raised concerns that Liu, his wife and other relatives have not been able to freely communicate with the outside and that their messages have been tightly controlled by authorities.

“Having foreign experts on the medical team is no replacement for Liu Xiaobo and his family to freely choose how and where he should be treated,” Liu’s friend, scholar Wen Kejian, said.

Liu, 61, an essayist and literary critic, was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2009 on the charge of inciting subversion of state power, based on his writings, including the bold Charter 08 that he co-authored.

That document and some of his prior writings called for political reforms that would end China’s one-party rule. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 while incarcerated.