The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to imprisoned Chinese pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo.
Liu was jailed for 11 years last December for writing a 2008 manifesto with other Chinese activists calling for free speech and multi-party elections.
The announcement that Liu would be the laureate had been anticipated and bitterly criticised by Beijing.
"The government opposes (giving the Nobel Peace Prize to him) because they fear that it will draw more attention to Liu Xiaobo and to China's situation (on democracy and human rights)," his wife Liu Xia told AFP earlier this week.
The prize, including 10 million Swedish crowns (1.5 million euros), will be presented in the Norwegian capital Oslo on 10 December.
See also Chinese reaction to Nobel Prize Laureate: 'Liu who?'
(AFP/DPA/RNW)
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It is a strange world! The Netherlands has put Wilders on trial because of his freedom of speech. The Queen and her men took more than four months to install a government in this country that has multi-party elections. Most democracies are having coalition governments that rarely work, because half the time is spent appeasing coalition partners and their political base, as the countries suffer. There is corruption and laxity at every level. And here, this man longs for that dreamland-land of democracy, and views world through rose-tinted glasses, when the world admires Beijing for her discipline and efforts to containe their population effectively. In fact, we the citizens of this world are yet to find a way to govern in a way that there are no dissidents who are frowned upon in their home country and honoured by foreign countries.
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