DEFIANCE REWARDED - Chinese Dissident Liu Xiaobo

By Khmer Democrat, Phnom Penh
Expanding the Mind Series

Power to the dissidents! Power to the outcasts in repressive societies! Power to democratic reforms! Power to the Norwegian Nobel Committee in recognizing Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo! BE THE CHANGE!

Chinese Dissident Awarded Nobel Peace Prize
International Herald Tribune
8 October 2010

LONDON — The Nobel Committee awarded its annual peace prize on Friday to the imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

A year after the committee, based in Oslo, Norway, stunned many people by awarding the $1.46 million prize to President Obama, it said on Friday that it had been awarded to Mr. Liu for his long nonviolent struggle for human rights in China.

Mr. Liu won over rumored challenges from contenders in Afghanistan and Russia. The prize is often contentious when it is awarded to candidates from divided or repressive societies whose governments are angered by the honor given to their adversaries.

The Chinese authorities had urged Norway not to award the prize to Mr. Liu.

While the candidates usually provoke a wave of advance rumors, the committee shrouds its deliberations in near-hermetic secrecy. The five-member committee said in advance of Friday’s award that it had received a record 237 nominations, 38 of them for organizations before nominations closed in February. Mr. Liu had been the favorite.

The prize-giving ceremony is to take place in December.

Mr. Liu Xiaobo is a Beijing writer and former literature professor who was given an 11-year prison sentence on subversion charges on Dec. 25, 2009, after urging Chinese leaders to embrace democratic reforms.