Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo: A profile

The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo will be 55 years old in a few days time. Considered by the Chinese Communist party as a constant thorn in their side, the laureate behind bars is not due for release for another 10 years. He will be 65.

An intellectual and seasoned campaigner Liu came to prominence in 1989, during the bloody Tiananmen Square protests. That saw him return back to China from the US to take part in the demonstration. He’d spend almost 2 years in jail for his trouble.

After his release, much to the Chinese authorities fury, he just wouldn’t go away, continuing to call for political reform and the release of other Tiananmen Square activists still locked up. By 1996, it would mean being put away again, this time in a re-education through Labour camp for 3 years.

Since then Liu, has persisted to talk on a range of taboo subjects, including Beijing’s policy towards Tibet, particularly following the unrest there in 2008.

In the same year Liu would publish Charter 08, calling for political reform and change in China. Initially signed by 300 Chinese liberal thinkers, thousands of others would later sign it online.

“People like me, may be we are a minority in China, but even if we are a minority, I think that our right to express our opinion and to criticise our government should be guaranteed and respected,” Liu Xiaobo said.

In December 2008, two days before charter 08 was due for publication Lui was seized at his home by police and would not be formally charged until June 2009.

It would see him get 11 years prison for ‘subverting state power’. Sentenced on Christmas Day last year – critics say because the West were on holiday and would not notice – since then his wife Liu Xia has only seen him a handful of times.

Lui’s incarceration prompted a wave of international condemnation, with the UN, EU and US all calling for his release. While few in China know his name, the leadership in Beijing remains defiant, cracking down hard on supporters of his controversial charter.

For the Chinese leadership this year’s Nobel Peace prize winner remains a criminal. That is the reason the honour will be awarded to somebody still behind bars.

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