Oslo:
Imprisoned in China and with close family members forbidden to leave the country, the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, his absence represented at the prize ceremony here on Friday by an empty chair. (
Read: Who is Liu Xiaobo?)
In Beijing, the Chinese authorities, who have been incensed by the choice of Mr. Liu, continued to pour vitriol on the award while intensifying their crackdown on scores of people they perceive as a threat. (
Read: India, 45 other countries at Nobel ceremony)
For the first time in 75 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, no representative of the winner was allowed to make the trip to receive the golden peace medal, a diploma and the $1.5 million check that comes with it. (
Read: Obama's Nobel statement snubs China |
Liu Xiaobo far more deserving of Nobel Prize than me: Obama)
The last time that happened was in 1935, when Hitler prevented that year's winner, Count Carl von Ossietzky, who was imprisoned in a concentration camp, and indeed anyone from Germany from attending the ceremony.
Noting Mr. Liu's absence, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, said to a standing ovation: "This fact alone shows that the award was necessary and appropriate."
"It is no coincidence that nearly all the richest countries in the world are democratic, because democracy mobilizes new human and technological resources," he said. "China's new status entails increased responsibility. China must be prepared for criticism, and regard it as a positive, as an opportunity for improvement."In normal years, representatives from the 60-plus diplomatic missions accredited in Oslo generally attend. But this year 16 ambassadors, including those from China and Russia, declined to attend, Nobel officials said, although not all characterized their absence as a direct result of the intense pressure and threats of reprisal from China before the ceremony.
Instead of a statement from Mr. Liu, a piece of his writing will be read aloud by the Norwegian actress and movie director Liv Ullmann.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has said repeatedly that it did not intend to snub or attack China when it selected Mr. Liu, who has been a thorn in the government's side for years but is better known outside the country than inside. Instead, the committee said, the point is to remind China that with power comes responsibility, and that economic growth should be coupled with political reform.
"The fate of China will be the fate of the world," Mr. Jagland said on Thursday. "If China is able to develop a social market economy with full civil rights, it will have a positive impact on the world as a whole."
Norway itself has been punished by China, which recently called the five members of the Nobel committee "clowns." Among other things, China has indefinitely suspended bilateral trade talks between the two countries. The two countries have not spoken officially since Mr. Liu was announced as the winner of the prize in October.
Mr. Liu was detained in December 2008, after co-authoring Charter '08 -- a call for reform and rights in China.
In Beijing on Thursday, Zhang Zuhua, a former official who helped write Charter '08, was forced into a vehicle by police officers, according to rights advocates, and dozens of other people were either confined to their homes or escorted out of the capital. At least one of them, the rights lawyer Teng Biao, was told by police he could return home on Sunday.
Blue construction panels went up in front of Mr. Liu's apartment building in an apparent attempt to block the sightlines of foreign cameramen who gathered there throughout the day. Mr. Liu's wife has been incommunicado inside her apartment since shortly after the award was announced two months ago, and other members of Mr. Liu's family have been under tight surveillance.
Her mother and one of his brothers were reluctant to speak to a reporter on Friday. I n a text message, the brother, Liu Xiaoxuan, apologized, saying his phone was being monitored.
Calls to many of the 140 people in China whom Ms. Liu had invited to the ceremony yielded recordings saying their phones had been turned off. One of the few to pick up, Yu Fangqiang, the managing partner of an AIDS organization, said he could not talk because a minder was sitting at his side.
Wang Songlian, a researcher at Chinese Human Rights Defenders, said the tightened surveillance imposed on more than 300 people throughout the country rivaled the restrictions imposed during the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 60th anniversary of the Communist Party's ascension to power which was celebrated last year.
Although the authorities have effectively silenced many of the country's most prominent critics, Ms. Wang said such efforts were self-defeating. "China has tried so hard to show it can rise peacefully, but making people disappear doesn't present a very good image to the outside world," she said. "It just shows how fearful the government is of dissent."
On Friday, Global Times, a nationalistic, populist tabloid affiliated with the party-owned People's Daily, branded the ceremony a "political farce" and described Oslo as a "cult center." Even as the state media railed against the award, censors meticulously scrubbed the Internet of any news stories or public comments that could be construed as sympathetic to Mr. Liu or the Nobel Prize. Broadcasts by news outlets such as CNN and the BBC were blacked out, and their Web sites were inaccessible to those unwilling or unable to surmount the so-called Great Firewall.
By most accounts, propaganda officials had done their job well. In interviews with more than three dozen people across the capital on Friday, only a handful said they knew anything about Mr. Liu. Most of those who had heard a Chinese citizen was the recipient of the peace prize parroted the government's contention that the award was a Western plot to embarrass the country.
Even if she knew nothing about this year's honoree, Xiao Feng, a 27-year-old food industry worker whose long red scarf matched her smartly designed glasses, said she thought he had probably done something to hinder China's development. "I think this year's prize is a little bit unfair," she said. "From what I can tell its purpose is to humiliate China."
Nobel officials said on Friday that 48 countries had accepted the invitation while 16 ambassadors had declined the invitation.
The 16 absent envoys were from China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iraq , Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Egypt, Sudan, Cuba, the Palestinian Authority and Morocco, the officials said. (
Read: Who's staying away from Nobel peace ceremony)
News reports earlier put the number of stayaways at 19 or 20. About 100 Chinese dissidents attended.
The list of countries not attending includes Western allies, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia which, irrespective of their international ties, resemble countries like China where power is centralized and dissent is not tolerated. The countries attending include the United States, many European nations and emerging economies such as India and South Africa.
It was not the first time a prominent dissident had been awarded the prize: Andrei D. Sakharov, the Soviet physicist, Polish labor leader Lech Walesa and the Burmese pro-democracy campaigner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, have all been named winners and were represented at the Oslo ceremony by close relatives.
And there have been occasions in times of world war -- and when no winner was chosen -- that the prize was not awarded.
Nobel officials have depicted the choice of Mr. Liu -- the first Chinese citizen to be awarded the prize -- as part of the committee's long tradition of support for dissidents in oppressive lands, such as Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu of South Africa, who was permitted by the apartheid authorities to travel to Oslo to receive the prize in 1984.
"It is a signal to China that it would be very important for China's future to combine economic development with political reforms and support for those in China fighting for basic human rights," Mr. Jagland, the committee chairman, said on Thursday.
The empty chair for Mr. Liu is "a very strong symbol" showing "how appropriate this prize was," Mr. Jagland said.
Sarah Lyall reported from Oslo, and Andrew Jacobs from Beijing. Alan Cowell contributed reporting from Paris. Jonathan Ansfield, Zhang Jing and Ashley Li contributed research from Beijing.