Officials say China’s most prominent political prisoner, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, has died. He was 61.

Liu had been hospitalized for advanced liver cancer diagnosed in prison in May. The judicial bureau in the northeastern city of Shenyang said Thursday he died of multiple organ failure.

His supporters and foreign governments had urged China to allow him to receive treatment abroad, but Chinese authorities insisted he was receiving the best care possible for a disease that had spread throughout his body.

Liu was imprisoned for the first time in connection with the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 while serving his fourth and final prison sentence, for inciting subversion by advocating sweeping political reforms and greater human rights in China. </s> Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, China's most prominent political prisoner, died Thursday at a hospital in the country's northeast, officials said. He was 61.

Liu had been transferred to the hospital after being diagnosed with advanced liver cancer in prison in May but remained under police custody. In an online announcement, the judicial bureau of the city of Shenyang said he died of multiple organ failure.

Liu was only the second Nobel Peace Prize winner to die in prison, a fact pointed to by human rights groups as an indication of the Chinese Communist Party's increasingly hard line against its critics. The first, Carl von Ossietzky, died from tuberculosis in Germany in 1938 while serving a sentence for opposing Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.

"Hitler was wild and strong and thought he was right — but history proved he was wrong in imprisoning a Nobel Peace Prize winner," said Mo Shaoping, an old friend and Liu's former lawyer, adding that he was heartbroken by Liu's death. "The authorities consider Liu Xiaobo guilty, but history will prove he is not."

Liu's supporters and foreign governments had urged China to allow him to receive treatment abroad, but Chinese authorities insisted he was receiving the best care possible for a disease that had spread throughout his body.

News of Liu's death triggered an outpouring of dismay among his friends and supporters.

"There are only two words to describe how we feel right now: grief and fury," family friend and activist Wu Yangwei, better known by his penname Ye Du, said by phone. "The only way we can grieve for Xiaobo and bring his soul some comfort is to work even harder to try to keep his influence alive."

Liu was imprisoned for the first time in connection with the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010 while serving his fourth and final prison sentence, for inciting subversion by advocating sweeping political reforms and greater human rights in China.

"What I demanded of myself was this: whether as a person or as a writer, I would lead a life of honesty, responsibility, and dignity," Liu wrote in "I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement," which he had hoped to read out in court when being sentenced in 2009. He was not permitted to do so and received an 11-year prison sentence.

He came to prominence following the 1989 pro-democracy protests centered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, which he called the "major turning point" in his life. Liu had been a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York but returned early to China in May 1989 to join the movement that was sweeping the country and which the Communist Party regarded as a grave challenge to its authority.

When the Chinese government sent troops and tanks into Beijing to quash the protests on the night of June 3-4, Liu persuaded some students to leave the square rather than face down the army. The military crackdown killed hundreds, possibly thousands, of people and heralded a more repressive era.

Liu became one of hundreds of Chinese imprisoned for crimes linked to the demonstrations. It was only the first of four stays in prisons owing to his ideology.

His final prison sentence was for co-authoring "Charter 08," a document circulated in 2008 that called for more freedom of expression, human rights and an independent judiciary in China. Although Liu wasn't the initiator, he was a prominent force behind it and already well known to the authorities.

The sentence only increased Liu's prominence outside of his country.

In 2010, while Liu was serving his sentence in a prison in a small city in China's northeast, he was awarded the Nobel Prize, with the Norwegian-based committee citing Liu's "long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."

The award enraged China's government, which condemned it as a political farce. Within days, Liu's wife, artist and poet Liu Xia, was put under house arrest, despite not being convicted of any crime. China also punished Norway, even though its government has no say over the independent Nobel panel's decisions. China suspended a bilateral trade deal and restricted imports of Norwegian salmon, and relations only resumed in 2017.

Dozens of Liu's supporters were prevented from leaving the country to accept the award on his behalf. Instead, Liu's absence at the prize-giving ceremony in Oslo, Norway, was marked by an empty chair. Another empty chair was for Liu Xia.

Liu was born on Dec. 28, 1955, in the northeastern city of Changchun, the son of a language and literature professor who was a committed party member. The middle child in a family of five boys, he was among the first students to attend Jilin University when college entrance examinations resumed following the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

Liu studied Chinese literature there and later moved to the capital, first as a graduate student and then as a lecturer at Beijing Normal University.

After spending nearly two years in detention following the Tiananmen crackdown, Liu was detained for the second time in 1995 after drafting a plea for political reform. Later that year, he was detained a third time after co-drafting "Opinion on Some Major Issues Concerning our Country Today." That resulted in a three-year sentence to a labor camp, during which time he married Liu Xia. He is survived by his wife and by his son from his first marriage.

Released in 1999, he joined the international literary and human rights organization PEN and continued advocating for human rights and democracy.

Liu Xia's brother was convicted on fraud charges and sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment over a real estate dispute which supporters said was designed to further persecute Liu Xiaobo's family over his actions.

Two years after Liu's Nobel prize, a Chinese writer won the Nobel Prize for Literature, to the delight of Chinese authorities. Mo Yan is not a critic of the Communist Party, and after initially evading questions from reporters, he eventually said he wished for Liu Xiaobo's freedom.

Other Nobel laureates were more outspoken. In 2012, an appeal by 134 Nobel laureates, including South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, called the detentions of both Lius a violation of international law and urged their immediate release. Fellow PEN members such as Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie appealed for his release in a letter on June 29 after he was transferred from prison to the hospital.

Bodeen reported from Beijing. Associated Press writer Gillian Wong and researcher Fu Ting contributed to this report from Beijing. </s> BEIJING — The Latest on the medical condition of China's imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Liu Xiaobo (all times local):

The Chinese hospital treating Liu Xiaobo says the imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate has respiratory failure and his condition is now life-threatening.

The First Hospital of China Medical University said Wednesday on its that Liu needs a tube to be inserted into his windpipe to give him breathing support.

It said Liu's family has refused the tracheostomy. Liu and his family, who are being closely guarded in the hospital, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The hospital reported that Liu, who has advanced liver cancer, is also suffering from renal failure and septic shock, and that blood clots have formed around his body.

The ailing health of China's most prominent political dissident has become the subject of international attention, with supporters and several foreign governments calling for him to be released to go abroad for treatment. </s> Jailed Chinese Nobel Peace laureate and dissident Liu Xiaobo has been released on medical parole after his May 23 diagnosis of late-stage liver cancer.

Liu's lawyer Mo Shaoping told The Associated Press on Monday that Liu was being treated and was in stable condition at China Medical University No. 1 Affiliated Hospital in the northeastern city of Shenyang. </s> Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winning rights activist Liu Xiaobo is being treated for late-stage liver cancer in a hospital in the city of Shenyang, Amnesty International said in a Tweet on Monday.

BEIJING: Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winning rights activist Liu Xiaobo is being treated for late-stage liver cancer in a hospital in the city of Shenyang, Amnesty International said in a Tweet on Monday.

Liu, 61, was jailed for 11 years in 2009 for "inciting subversion of state power" after he helped write a petition known as "Charter 08" calling for sweeping political reforms in China.

In December 2010, Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his activism promoting human rights in China, causing China to freeze diplomatic ties with Norway. </s> China's Nobel peace prize laureate Liu Xiaobo has passed away at the age of 61.

He died in hospital today after being transferred there from a prison a month ago.

Liu was serving an 11 year sentence for 'subversion'.

The legal bureau in the northeastern city of Shenyang, where he had been hospitalised, confirmed his death in a statement.



Supporters and foreign governments had urged China to allow him to receive treatment abroad however Chinese authorities insisted that he remain in the country.

Liu had expressed a wish to seek medical treatment in either the US or Germany to help prolong his life. Doctors from both countries visited him earlier this week and said that he could be moved but staff at the hospital would need to act fast.

He was imprisoned for the first time in connection with the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests.

Liu was arrested in 2008 after co-writing Charter 08, a petition that called for the protection of basic human rights and reform of China's one-party Communist system.

He was jailed for 11 years.

In 2010 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Laureate Prize while serving his fourth prison sentence. Liu was banned from attending the awards ceremony with a chair left empty in his honour.

He is survived by his wife Liu Xia who has been placed under house arrest since the time of her husband being awarded the Nobel award. She suffered a heart attack in 2014 and was diagnosed with depression after years of detention.

Western governments, rights groups and a coalition of Nobel prize winners had repeatedly called for his release.

Liu was the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel peace prize and only three people to have won it while detained by their own government. </s> Jailed Chinese Nobel Peace laureate and dissident Liu Xiaobo has been released on medical parole after being diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer, his lawyer said Monday. Liu was in stable condition at the China Medical University No. 1 Affiliated Hospital in the northeastern city of Shenyang, his lawyer Mo Shaoping told The Associated Press. Liu was diagnosed on May 23, Mo said. It was not immediately clear if Liu was being allowed visitations.

Liu, China’s best-known political prisoner, was sentenced to 11 years in prison after being convicted of inciting state subversion in 2009 for writing and disseminating Charter `08, a document calling for democracy. The following year, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by the Norway-based Nobel committee, a move that has greatly angered the Chinese government. In April, Beijing normalized its relations with Oslo after a six-year hiatus.

The news of Liu’s diagnosis shocked and saddened fellow human rights activists in China.“It’s known that Liu Xiaobo and his family have made a tremendous sacrifice for the cause of freedom and democracy for China,” said Shanghai-based legal scholar and human rights activist Zhang Xuezhong. “This is unfortunate news for him and his family, and it’s a blow to China’s democracy movement, as so many people have placed hope in him, and rightfully so.”

Without further information on Liu’s medical condition, Zhang said that no effort should be spared to treat Liu, and that his family must be fully informed of his treatment plans. “His life is so important that I think he should get the best possible treatment with full knowledge of his family, even if it means some compromises” with the government, Zhang said. Geng Shuang, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said he was not aware of the latest development in Liu’s case. </s> FILE PHOTO - Liu Xia, the wife of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, talks to the media in Beijing Thomson Reuters BEIJING (Reuters) - Liu Xia, the widow of late Chinese political dissident Liu Xiaobo, has left Beijing on a flight to Berlin, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) said on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources.

The Chinese-language report said Liu Xia was aboard a Finnair flight that departed from Beijing at 11 a.m. (0300 GMT). It gave no further details of her travel plans.

Liu Xiaobo died of liver cancer in July 2017 in Chinese custody, having been jailed in 2009 for inciting subversion.

Liu Xia had been under house arrest since her husband was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 and Beijing has been under pressure to allow her to leave China. </s> BEIJING: China 's jailed Nobel peace prize laureate Liu Xiaobo was granted medical parole after being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer last month, his lawyer told AFP on Monday."He's now being treated at a hospital in Shenyang (in northeast Liaoning province). He has no special plans. He is just receiving medical treatment for his illness," lawyer Mo Shaoping said, adding that he was diagnosed on May 23 and released days later.
Prominent Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo dies.