Liu Xiaobo, a 54-year-old Chinese citizen, who, according
to the Chinese foreign ministry, "is a criminal who
has been sentenced by Chinese authorities for violating
Chinese law," has been selected by the Norwegian Nobel
Committee for the Nobel Peace Prize 2010 for his "long and
non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."
As in the pastat the announcement of Nobel
Peace Prize to Carl von Ossietzky, Andrei Sakharov, Lech
Walesa, Aung San Suu Kyi, Martin Luther King for their fight
against an oppressive state or an unjust social orderthis time
too, the announcement of Peace Prize to Liu has stirred up a
controversy, and the leaders at the helm of affairs in China
have said that the awarding of the Peace Prize to Liu
"completely contradicts its aims and is an obscenity". However, the
prize does breathe fresh life into the otherwise marginalized
community of fighters for democratic rights in China.
The Chinese government has expressed its anger at the award by summoning
Norway's ambassador to China and expressing its
protest against the Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision to hand over the
Nobel Peace Prize to Liu. The Chinese foreign
ministry has said that the award is sure to
"damage Sino-Norwegian relations". Of course, it is
not for the first time that the Chinese government is unhappy about the Committee's choice
for the Peace Prize: earlier it had opposed the awarding of Peace Prize to the
14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, the religious and political leader of
the Tibetan people, for his struggle for the liberation of Tibet
by consistently opposing the use of violence and instead
advocating peaceful solutions based on tolerance and mutual respect in
order to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of his people.
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