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Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate and renowned dissident Liu Xiaobo has died from multiple organ failure, Chinese authorities say, having not been allowed to leave the country for treatment as he wished.
Key points:
- Liu Xiaobo is now the second Nobel Peace Prize laureate to die while imprisoned
- Nobel Committee says "China bears a heavy responsibility for premature death"
- Rights groups had pushed for Mr Liu to be allowed to leave, which Beijing denied
Mr Liu, a prominent participant in the Tiananmen pro-democracy protests of 1989, was jailed for 11 years in 2009 for "inciting subversion of state power" after helping to write a petition known as Charter 08 calling for sweeping political reforms.
He was recently moved from prison to a hospital in Shenyang to be treated for late-stage liver cancer.
The Shenyang legal bureau of Justice said in a brief statement on its website that Mr Liu, who was 61 years old, had suffered multiple organ failure and efforts to save him had failed.
Despite being given multiple forms of treatment, his illness had continued to worsen, it added.
The hospital treating him confirmed in a separate statement the cause of death.
Rights groups and Western governments had urged China to allow Mr Liu and his wife, Liu Xia, to leave the country to be treated abroad.
But Beijing had warned against interference in its internal affairs, saying Mr Liu was getting the best care possible and was being treated by renowned Chinese cancer experts.
The Government allowed two foreign doctors, from the United States and Germany, to visit Mr Liu on Saturday who later said they considered it was safe for him to be moved overseas, but any move should be done as quickly as possible.
After the doctors' Sunday statement, China released short videos of their visit, apparently taken without their knowledge, in which the German doctor appeared to praise the care Mr Liu had received.
'Chinas bears responsibility for death': Nobel Committee
Mr Liu's death makes him the second Nobel Peace Prize laureate to die while imprisoned, the first being German pacifist and Nazi foe Carl von Ossietzky in 1938.
Following the news, Berit Reiss-Anderssen, the leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the Chinese Government bears a heavy responsibility for his death.
"We find it deeply disturbing that Liu Xiaobo was not transferred to a facility where he could receive adequate medical treatment before he became terminally ill," Ms Reiss-Anderssen said.
"The Chinese Government bears a heavy responsibility for his premature death."
Amnesty International secretary-general Salil Shetty said in a statement efforts must now be made to ensure his wife is no longer persecuted, adding Mr Liu had fought tirelessly for human rights.
"He did so in the face of the most relentless and often brutal opposition from the Chinese Government," Mr Shetty said.
"Time and again they tried to silence him, and time and again they failed."
In 2008 Mr Liu helped write a political manifesto known as Charter 08 urging China's leaders to reform the country and move to a system of liberal democracy.
Liz Jackson spoke with him for Four Corners in one of his last interviews before he was imprisoned seven months later.
ABC/Reuters
Topics: world-politics, death, activism-and-lobbying, china, asia
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