China: Liu’s Nobel like backing crime
2010-10-14 14:36
Beijing - China on Thursday denounced the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to dissident Liu Xiaobo as tantamount to "encouraging crime", as state media said the prize was part of a Western "ideological war" against Beijing.
The comments came as China faced fresh pressure, with Norway criticising Chinese retaliatory steps over the award and Japan's prime minister saying the jailed peace laureate should be freed.
"Liu Xiaobo is a convicted criminal. Awarding the Nobel Prize to him is equivalent to encouraging crime," foreign ministry spokesperson Ma Zhaoxu told reporters.
Liu, 54, was sentenced last December to 11 years in jail for subversion. He was awarded the peace prize on Friday by Oslo's Nobel Committee for his advocacy of political reform and human rights in one-party China.
The US and European Union have called for his release and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan weighed in on Thursday, risking Beijing's ire just as Japan and China seek to put a damaging diplomatic spat behind them.
"From the viewpoint that universal human rights should be protected across national borders, it is desirable" that Liu be released, Kan told the Japanese parliament.
House arrest
China broke off contacts with Tokyo last month after Japan detained a Chinese fishing boat captain whose vessel collided with Japanese coastguard ships in waters claimed by both sides in the East China Sea.
However, the two close trading partners have moved recently to patch up the row.
Kan said he would be "watching whether he (Liu Xiaobo) will be able to attend the Nobel Prize award ceremony or whether his wife or family members will attend".
Liu's wife, Liu Xia, has been largely confined to her Beijing home since Friday in what she has denounced as "illegal house arrest." Washington and Brussels have both appealed to China to let her move freely again.
Beijing has directed its fury at Oslo by cancelling ministerial meetings and a Norwegian musical scheduled to be staged in the country.
Oslo on Wednesday criticised the cancellations and said Norway hoped to maintain goods’ relations with China.
"If this decision is the consequence of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize, we consider this an inappropriate reaction," Norwegian foreign ministry spokesperson Ragnhild Imerslund told AFP.
The state-run English-language Global Times newspaper said on Thursday Liu's award was part of a Western "ideological war" against China.
"They even hope that China will one day collapse under the West's ideological crusade," said the editorial, intended for foreign audiences.
Wife’s phone cut off
Chinese-language state media have remained muted on the subject amid an information blackout on the news in China.
Liu Xiaobo was sentenced in December to 11 years in jail on subversion charges in what was widely seen as retaliation for authoring an appeal for political reform and human rights in 2008.
China's Communist Party has an iron grip on political power and its human rights record is frequently criticised by foreign governments and activists at home.
Dissidents and activist lawyers have been under close surveillance since the award was announced, and ahead of an annual Communist Party meeting opening Friday.
Liu Xia, meanwhile, has had her telephones cut off by authorities but has issued periodic statements on Twitter.
Twitter is blocked in China by the nation's censors, but accessible via proxy servers.
"I strongly protest against the government for my illegal house arrest," Liu Xia said in a tweet on Wednesday, calling her situation "very hard to take".
Her lawyers told AFP on Thursday that she remained unreachable by phone.
