A heroic life

Chinese dissident Liu would not be silenced

Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo died Thursday from liver cancer. He was 61. A longtime human rights activist and a principal drafter of Charter 08, a document that demanded greater political reform in China, Mr. Liu had been in the custody of Chinese authorities for eight years. He had been sentenced to 11 yearsfor “subverting the state.”

Mr. Liu still is considered such a threat to Chinese authorities that his name has been blocked from internet searches in his homeland. He has been described as the nation’s bestknown political prisoner. He knew the risks but refused to be silenced. Charter 08 was able to amass more than 300 signatures from dissidents, intellectuals and artists inside and outside of the country.

When Mr. Liu’s terminal liver cancer was announced, his wife, the poet and photographer Liu Xia, begged Chinese authorities to let her husband travel abroad for treatment. Foreign governments made the same request, to no avail.

Although Ms. Liu’s request was denied, Mr. Liu was transferred from a prison to a hospital as his condition worsened. Independent medical experts and lawyers were kept from his bedside. Even Ms. Liu’s visits with her dying husband were limited and strictly monitored. They were never allowed a moment of privacy. Now that he is gone, she remains under house arrest.

In 2010, Mr. Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia for encouraging a nonviolent struggle against China’s authoritarian rule and widespread corruption. He was a courageous and consistent voice for political reform in a country that crushes all dissent with uncommon swiftness and brutality. Because of censorship, not everyone understands Mr. Liu’s contributions.

Mr. Liu is dead, but the political reforms he championed continue to churn beneath the seemingly placid surface of China's one-party politics. One day, Chinese citizens will become fully aware of the voice for freedom and dignity they lost this week.