BEIJING: Chinese Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo has been transferred to hospital from imprisonment after being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, according to media reports. News of Liu being diagnosed with late stage cancer met with an outpouring of anger from activists in China and abroad.
Liu, 61, was arrested in 2008 after writing a pro-democracy manifesto called Charter 08, in which he called for an end to one-party rule and improvements in human rights. Following a year in detention and a two-hour trial, he was sentenced to 11 years in December 2009 for inciting subversion of state power.
His lawyer, Mo Shaoping, who has been in contact with Liu’s family, said he was now in the late stages of disease. Another of Liu’s lawyers, Shang Baojun, said he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer on 23 May.
Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel peace Prize in 2010 for “his long and nonviolent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.”