Beijing, July 13: As Liu Xiaobo braced for his verdict, the late Chinese democracy activist penned a moving statement declaring his love for his wife while telling his jailers: “I have no enemies.”
But the authorities were unmoved by the conciliatory words from a writer who had been a thorn in their side for years, and they sentenced him to 11 years in prison on Christmas Day 2009 for “subversion”.
Liu’s punishment generated international condemnation and turned him into the living symbol of the Communist government’s intolerance for dissent until his death Thursday at age 61.
Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a year after his sentence, infuriating Chinese authorities, who kept him in custody even after he was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer in late May and taken from prison to a hospital.
At the December 2010 Nobel ceremony in Oslo, his statement titled “I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement” was read by an actress, with an empty chair representing the imprisoned activist, who was also known for his role in the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests.
Liu wrote that, even though the authorities deprived him of his freedom, he hoped “to counter the regime’s hostility with utmost goodwill, and to dispel hatred with love”.
Turning to his wife, the poet Liu Xia, he said: “Even if I were crushed into powder, I would still use my ashes to embrace you.”
Liu Xia herself was placed under house arrest in 2010, but she was allowed to be by his side at the hospital. Her fate will now be the centre of concern among human rights groups.
Liu was the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize and one of only three people to have won it while detained by their own government.
He was the second Nobel laureate to die in custody after German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who passed away in a hospital under the Nazis in 1938.
He was arrested in late 2008 after co-authoring Charter 08, a widely circulated online petition that called for political reform in the Communist-ruled nation. AFP
