Liu Xiaobo now joins Mynmar (Burma)'s Aung San Suu Kyi and German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who won the 1935 prize while jailed by the Nazis, as the only Nobel Peace Prize laureates honored while in detention. Liu Xiaobo was sentenced on December 23, 2009, to eleven years in prison for expressing his views, in writing, critical of the Chinese government.
It's unfortunate that the Chinese government becomes so enraged when their warnings to other countries not to do certain things--like consider Liu Xiaobo for the Nobel Peace Prize[1]--or orders not to honor someone (like the Dalai Lama[2]) are ignored, that retaliation is the response of choice:
"When the Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman, Thorbjoern Jagland, announced the award ... the broadcast on the BBC and CNN went black ... Major mainland news portals have yet to publish news of Liu's prize ...text messages containing "Liu Xiaobo" were blocked by the major cell phone service providers.[3].
I have posted this video twice before, here and here, and am doing so again. The attempt to silence Xiaobo, or news about him, thank the universe, does not extend here.
Daybreak
for Xia
over the tall ashen wall, between
the sound of vegetables being chopped
daybreak’s bound, severed,
dissipated by a paralysis of spirit
what is the difference
between the light and the darkness
that seems to surface through my eyes’
apertures, from my seat of rust
I can’t tell if it’s the glint of chains
in the cell, or the god of nature
behind the wall
daily dissidence
makes the arrogant
sun stunned to no end
daybreak a vast emptiness
you in a far place
with nights of love stored away
~ ~ Liu Xiaobo
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