Empty chair at Nobel event
Liu in prison; wife under house arrest
OSLO, Norway – When ambassadors, royalty and other VIPs take their seats in Oslo’s City Hall today for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, there will be one chair left empty – for this year’s winner.
Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, a democracy activist, is serving an 11-year prison sentence in China on subversion charges brought after he co-authored a bold call for sweeping changes to Beijing’s one-party communist political system.
Chinese authorities have placed Liu’s supporters, including his wife Liu Xia, under house arrest to prevent anyone from picking up his prize.
On Thursday, Chinese police surrounded Liu’s house in Beijing. Officers guarded the entrance to the residential compound and checked the identities of all who entered.
China was infuriated when the prestigious $1.4 million prize was awarded to the 54-year-old literary critic, describing it as an attack on its political and legal system.
Beijing has also pressured foreign diplomats to stay away from today’s ceremony. China and 18 other countries have declined to attend, including Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba.
Nobel committee secretary Geir Lundestad said Liu will be represented “by an empty chair … the strongest possible argument” for awarding it to him.
It will be the first time the peace prize will not be handed out since 1936, when Adolf Hitler prevented German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky from accepting the award.
The prize can be collected only by the laureate or close family members. Cold War dissidents Andrei Sakharov of the Soviet Union and Lech Walesa of Poland were able to have their wives collect the prizes for them.
Among the 1,000 guests expected at the City Hall ceremony are House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Ambassador Barry White. In addition, about 100 Chinese dissidents in exile and some activists from Hong Kong will attend.
Several news websites, including the BBC’s and Norwegian broadcaster NRK’s, were blocked in China on Thursday, apparently to blot out any possible coverage of the ceremony. Some Nobel-related reports on CNN’s website were also inaccessible.
In a chaotic ceremony Thursday in Beijing, former Taiwanese Vice President Lien Chan was honored with the first Confucius Peace Prize – intended to put forth China’s idea of peace.
Lien was absent and his aides seemed not to know anything about it. Instead, an unidentified girl accepted it on his behalf.
Tan Changliu, chairman of the awards committee, said the new prize should not be linked with Liu.