Asia

Asia

China's most prominent dissident dies

14 July 2017 02:29 (UTC +04:00)

Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, who was China's most prominent human rights and democracy advocate, has died aged 61, APA reports quoting BBC.

The activist had been serving an 11-year prison term for "subversion" and was recently moved to a hospital for treatment for terminal liver cancer.

A university professor turned tireless rights campaigner, Mr Liu was branded a criminal by authorities.

The Nobel Committee said the Chinese government bore a "heavy responsibility for his premature death".

The campaigner was repeatedly jailed throughout his life. When not in prison, he was subject to severe restrictions while his wife, Liu Xia, was placed under house arrest.

Mr Liu died "peacefully", surrounded by his wife and other relatives, a doctor who treated him said. His final words to Liu Xia were: "Live on well," the South China Morning Post reported.

Who was he?

Liu Xiaobo played a significant role in the Tiananmen Square student protests of June 1989, which ended in bloodshed when they were quashed by government troops.

He and other activists negotiated the safe exit of several hundred demonstrators, and have been credited with saving their lives.

He was subsequently placed in a detention centre and released in 1991.

Mr Liu's campaign to free those detained during the Tiananmen Square protests landed him in a labour camp in north-eastern China for three years, but he was permitted to marry poet Liu Xia there in 1996.

He was later freed, and continued to campaign for democracy.

The 11-year jail term was handed down in 2009 after he compiled, with other intellectuals, the Charter 08 manifesto. It called for an end to one-party rule and the introduction of multi-party democracy.

Mr Liu was found guilty of trying to overthrow the state.

He was a pro-democracy figurehead for activists outside mainland China, although many of his compatriots were unaware of his struggles because the authorities rigorously censored news about him.