Nobel winner Liu ‘wants to die in West’

TERMINALLY ill Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo wants Chinese authorities to let him get treatment abroad, friends say, as officials said his cancer had spread throughout his body.

Prominent Chinese dissident writer Liao Yiwu said Liu’s wife had sent a formal request to China’s state security ministry for permission for the couple and her brother to leave the country.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2009 for “subversion” after calling for democratic reforms, had been released on medical parole after being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer last month, his lawyer said this week.

His wife, Liu Xia, sent the request before the diagnosis, but family friends say the couple want the 61-year-old democracy campaigner to be treated abroad.

“I learned two weeks ago that Liu Xiaobo said that if he dies, he wants to die in the West,” Liao, a family friend who lives in Germany, said in a phone interview.

Another friend, who requested anonymity out of fear of persecution, said he had received similar information from family sources.

Amnesty International China researcher Patrick Poon, citing people close to the family, said: “Liu Xia indeed wants Liu Xiaobo to get medical care abroad.”

But the rights watchdog was unable to verify if Liu Xiaobo himself had expressed those wishes. The state security ministry could not be reached for comment.

Liao said he had also received a handwritten letter from Liu’s wife in April in which she said her husband wanted to leave China.

Liao said he had sent the letter to the US and German governments.

The US and German embassies in Beijing declined to comment. The new US ambassador to Beijing, Terry Branstad, said on Wednesday he would like to see Liu have the option of treatment abroad, echoing a growing chorus of Chinese and foreign human rights activists.

Meanwhile, a video showing Liu undergoing medical exams in prison was posted on YouTube by US-based Chinese-language news site Boxun late on Wednesday.

In it, Liu says he is grateful for the good care he has received from prison doctors.

Boxun did not specify where the footage came from or where and when it had been filmed. – AFP