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Beijing cancels Norway meeting after
Liu¡¦s Nobel
MEMORIAL:Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo reportedly
told his wife that he dedicated the award to all the people massacred in
Tiananmen Square in 1989
Agencies, BEIJING
Norway said yesterday that China has called off a meeting with the Norwegian
fisheries minister just days after Beijing warned that the Nobel Peace Prize
award to a jailed Chinese dissident would harm relations between the countries.
The move was announced a day after Liu Xiaobo (¼B¾åªi), the imprisoned democracy
campaigner, was allowed a brief, tearful meeting with his wife, during which he
dedicated the award to the ¡§lost souls¡¨ of the 1989 military crackdown on
student demonstrators.
Liu, 54, is in the second year of an 11-year prison term for inciting
subversion.
Beijing had reacted angrily to Friday¡¦s announcement honoring Liu, calling him a
criminal and warning Norway¡¦s government that relations would suffer, even
though the Nobel committee is an independent organization.
The Norwegian Minister of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs Lisbeth Berg-Hansen
arrived in China yesterday for a weeklong visit to the World Expo in Shanghai,
said Magnus Hodne, the Norwegian ministry¡¦s spokesman.
She was supposed to meet with China¡¦s vice minister for fisheries tomorrow, but
the Chinese canceled the meeting, Hodne said, adding he did not know the reason.
Liu told his wife, Liu Xia (¼BÁø), that he dedicated his Nobel ¡§to all of those
who died on June 4, 1989,¡¨ Norway¡¦s Dagbladet newspaper reported, citing a
message from Liu Xia after she visited her husband in prison.
Via her Twitter account, Liu Xia said she had been placed under house arrest at
her Beijing home both before and after travelling to the prison in northeastern
China where her husband is held to inform him of his prize.
¡§Brothers, I have returned home. On the eighth they placed me under house
arrest. I don¡¦t know when I will be able to see anyone,¡¨ the Sunday night
Twitter posting said.
¡§My mobile phone has been broken and I cannot call or receive calls. I saw
Xiaobo and told him on the ninth at the prison that he won the prize. I will let
you know more later. Everyone, please help me [re]tweet. Thanks,¡¨ she said.
European diplomats were prevented from visiting her yesterday. Liu Xia has been
told that if she wants to leave her home she must be escorted in a police car,
the New York-based group Human Rights in China said.
Simon Sharpe, the first secretary of political affairs of the EU delegation in
China, said he wanted to see Liu Xia at her home in Beijing to personally
deliver a letter of congratulations on the peace award from the president of the
European Commission.
Sharpe was accompanied by diplomats from about 10 embassies, including
Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy and Australia.
Three uniformed guards at the main gate of Liu¡¦s apartment complex prevented the
group from entering, saying someone from inside the building had to come out and
fetch them. However, since Liu Xia¡¦s phones aren¡¦t working, that was impossible.
Sharpe read out a message from European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso
that said the decision to award Liu the peace prize was ¡§a strong message of
support to all those around the world who sometimes with great personal
sacrifice are struggling for freedom and human rights.¡¨
In other developments, state-controlled Chinese newspapers said yesterday that
the prize to Liu showed a prejudiced West afraid of China¡¦s rising wealth and
standing.
¡§The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to ¡¥dissident¡¦ Liu Xiaobo was nothing
more than another expression of this prejudice, and behind it lies an
extraordinary terror of China¡¦s rise and the Chinese model,¡¨ the Global Times
said.
If Liu¡¦s calls for a multi-party democracy in China were followed, a commentary
in the paper said: ¡§China¡¦s fate would perhaps be no better than the former
Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and the country probably would have quickly
collapsed.¡¨
The China Daily said the award was ¡§part of the plot to contain China,¡¨ and it
exposed ¡§the deep and wide ideological rift between this country and the West.¡¨
The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, criticized China¡¦s irate
response yesterday. He told Kyodo News during a stopover at Tokyo¡¦s Narita
Airport that the Chinese government does ¡§not appreciate different opinions at
all.¡¨
He also said building an open and transparent society was ¡§the only way to save
all people of China¡¨ but that some ¡§hardliners¡¨ inside the leadership were stuck
in an ¡§old way of thinking.¡¨
Four UN human rights experts ¡X Frank La Rue, El Hadji Malick Sow, Margaret
Sekaggya and Gabriela Knaul, who examine issues ranging from breaches of the
right to free speech to arbitrary detention ¡X also called on China to release
Liu and ¡§all persons detained for peacefully exercising their right to freedom
of expression.¡¨
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