The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the 2010 Peace Prize to Mr. Liu Xiaobo for his work promoting human rights in China. Not surprisingly the award comes over the objections of the Chinese government, which considers Mr. Liu a criminal. We applaud the decision and the outstanding work of Mr. Liu, who has labored for years to bring democracy to his country.
Mr. Liu is a literary critic and social commentator, once known as one of China's "angry young men" for fiery criticism of his country's literature, particularly its silence over the Cultural Revolution. He was living overseas when democracy protests seized international attention in 1989. He returned home from the United States, where he was a visiting scholar at Columbia University, to become one of the leading voices for democratization. He anticipated the inevitable outcome of the protests and tried to get the protesters to leave Tiananmen Square. He failed.
He was arrested in the crackdown that followed and jailed for more than a year. He lost his teaching job when he was released, but he continued to press for political reform, human rights and a reassessment of the official verdict on the Tiananmen incident. He was again arrested in 1995, detained for eight months and eventually sentenced to three years in a labor camp. Upon his release, he turned to the Internet to press for reform in China.