The Nobel Peace Center in Oslo was mourning the death of jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo on Thursday and announced that it had set up a commemorative installation about his life and work. An online book of condolences has also been opened, the center stated, “for all those who would like to remember and pay their last respects to Liu Xiaobo.”
Liu died Thursday of complications from liver cancer, setting off more criticism and controversy over how he’s been treated by Chinese authorities. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, for his “long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.” By that time he was already in prison, serving an 11-year sentence for “inciting subversion of state power.”
Liu was never allowed to receive his Peace Prize, drawing parallels to the only other Nobel Laureate who was denied his prize, Carl von Ossietzky, who died in detention in Hitler’s Nazi Germany in 1938. Von Ossietzky had been jailed for revealing Hitler’s military build-up in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles.
“Today another sad chapter in the struggle for democracy and freedom of expression has been written,” stated the Nobel Peace Center, which presents the Nobel Peace Prize laureates and their work, in addition to telling the story of prize benefactor Alfred Nobel. The center is one of Norway’s most-visited museums, attracting around 250,000 people a year.
newsinenglish.no staff
