AT BEIJING’S Number One Intermediate People’s Court in December 2009, Liu Xiaobo, who was about to be sentenced to 11 years in jail for incitement to subvert state power, said in his closing argument that hatred could “poison the spirit of an entire people”. As The Economist went to press, the scene at his death bed in a hospital in the north-eastern city of Shenyang exemplified both the poisonous spirit of the government against which Mr Liu had spoken out, and the bravery and restraint that he hoped would transcend his imprisonment and which helped win him the Nobel peace prize in 2010.
In late May Mr Liu, a university lecturer in Beijing who had risen to prominence during the Tiananmen Square protests, was found to have late-stage liver cancer. He was transferred from his prison cell to the First Hospital of China Medical University. His treatment there showed the calculated and petty cruelty that China’s government sometimes metes out to peaceful...Continue reading
Source: China http://ift.tt/2ti6Ljh
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