Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波, 1955–2017) was a writer, Beijing Normal University professor, and leading author of Charter 08, the 2008 manifesto calling for constitutional democracy and the rule of law in China. Detained in December 2008 and sentenced in 2009 to eleven years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power,” he was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize in absentia and died on July 13, 2017, in a Shenyang hospital under state-security guard.
This archive records the documentary and media trail of his case. For his life story, see his Person Profile and Memorial.
Source chronology
- 1989–1991: Liu participated in the 1989 Tiananmen protests and was imprisoned afterward for supporting the student movement.
- 1996–1999: Human Rights Watch records another period of imprisonment in a re-education-through-labor camp.
- December 2008: Charter 08 was published; Liu was one of its leading authors and was detained just before publication.
- December 25, 2009: He was sentenced to eleven years in prison plus two years’ deprivation of political rights for “inciting subversion of state power.”
- October 8, 2010: The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Liu the Nobel Peace Prize “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.”
- June–July 2017: Liu was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer, transferred from prison to a Shenyang hospital, and requests for overseas treatment were denied.
- July 13, 2017: Human Rights Watch reported that Liu died from complications of liver cancer while being guarded by state security.
- July 2017: Human Rights Watch and other organizations reported on the funeral, sea burial, censorship surrounding his death, and concerns over the whereabouts and freedom of his wife Liu Xia.
Source provenance and limits
NobelPrize.org provides the primary record of the 2010 award. Human Rights Watch provides contemporaneous reporting on Liu’s death and detention chronology. Global Voices documented censorship and narrative control around his illness and death, and Chinese Human Rights Defenders recorded international calls concerning Liu Xia.
No independent autopsy or independent investigation into the conditions of Liu’s final detention is documented in the sources reviewed. The fact that he died from complications of liver cancer in hospital under guard is well documented; broader claims about responsibility are attributed to the organizations and officials who made them.
Key sources
- NobelPrize.org — The Nobel Peace Prize 2010
- Human Rights Watch, July 13, 2017
- Global Voices, July 17, 2017
- Human Rights Watch, July 20, 2017
- Chinese Human Rights Defenders, August 2017