Foreign doctors okay laureate to travel
BEIJING: Two foreign specialists who visited Liu Xiaobo said yesterday that the cancer-stricken Nobel Peace Prize laureate would be able to safely travel abroad for treatment, apparently contradicting statements by Chinese experts who say a medical evacuation would be unsafe.
The American and German doctors, who saw Liu on Saturday, issued a joint statement saying their home institutions – the University of Heidelberg and the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas – have agreed to accept Liu, but any evacuation would have to take place “as quickly as possible”.
Liu, 61, China’s most prominent political dissident, was diagnosed in May with latestage liver cancer while serving 11 years for inciting subversion by advocating sweeping political reforms that would end China’s one-party rule. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, the year after he was convicted and jailed by a Chinese court.
The differing opinions about the feasibility of Liu travelling could further complicate the tug-of-war over him. For weeks, family and supporters have asked that the activist be fully released and allowed to receive treatment abroad, arguing that authorities are keeping him in China only out of political considerations.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government has maintained that Liu is receiving the best treatment possible at the First Hospital of China Medical University in Shenyang. Chinese state media have labelled Liu a convicted criminal, and the government has warned other countries to stay out of China’s internal affairs.
Following international criticism, China allowed the two foreign experts, Dr Markus Buchler of Heidelberg University and Dr Joseph Herman of the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, to visit Liu.
Buchler and Herman said in their statement yesterday that they “acknowledged” the quality of care Liu has received in Shenyang, but that Liu had expressed a desire to leave China, and that they judged he “can be safely transported with appropriate medical evacuation care and support”.
Hours after the foreign doctors announced their opinion, Jared Genser, a Washington lawyer who represents Liu internationally, said any decision by Chinese authorities to keep Liu would amount to “intentionally hastening his death” and “refusing to honour the wishes of a dying man to receive the treatment he desires”.
Already criticised for letting an imprisoned Nobel laureate fall terminally ill on its watch, the Chinese government faces a public relations disaster whether Liu stays in the country or goes abroad.
Hu Jia, a Chinese dissident and family friend, said Beijing was afraid of letting its most potent opposition symbol go abroad as long as he was able to speak to the media.
“As long as he can still talk, the global media will report and transmit his message to the world,” Hu said. “Every sound he utters will be recorded as a force for changing China.”
Shang Baojun, a former lawyer for Liu who is close to the family, said on Saturday that Liu was coherent enough during the visit with the foreign doctors to say he wanted to go abroad for treatment, preferably to Germany, although the US would also be fine. At times, Liu was lucid enough to communicate in English, Shang said.
The hospital released a brief online statement late on Saturday that quoted an unnamed Chinese expert as saying it would be unsafe for Liu to travel abroad. The hospital has previously said Liu’s liver function is deteriorating, and blood clots are forming in his left leg and could travel to the brain or the lungs, leading to death.
Phone calls to the hospital’s administration and publicity office rang unanswered yesterday.
The US urged China to allow Liu to travel. “We continue to call on the Chinese authorities to grant Mr Liu full parole and to release his wife, Liu Xia, from house arrest, and to allow them to travel to seek specialised care that would ease his suffering in his final days,” said Mary Beth Polley, the spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Beijing.
Hu agreed that Liu was almost certain to die soon regardless of where he was.
“Letting him fly away from his hell would be a massive psychological boost, stronger than any medicine you can give him,” Hu said. “It will improve his final days, so he will die with dignity – and in the free world.” – AP