Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo wins 2010 Nobel Peace Prize

Imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010 "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."

For over two decades after the Tiananmen protests in 1989, Liu Xiaobo has been a strong spokesman for fundamental human rights in China. He was a leading author behind Charter 08, the manifesto of such rights in China, which was published on the 60th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, on 10 December 2008. In the following year, Liu was sentenced to eleven years in prison and two years' deprivation of political rights for "inciting subversion of state power". Liu has consistently maintained that the sentence violates both China's own constitution and fundamental human rights.

"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has long believed that there is a close connection between human rights and peace. Such rights are a prerequisite for the `fraternity between nations' of which Alfred Nobel wrote in his will," the committee said in its press release.

While, China has achieved unparalleled economic advances over the past decades to emerge the world's second largest economy, lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and broadened the scope for political participation, China is in breach of several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as well as of its own provisions concerning political rights, the Nobel Committee said.

China's new status must entail increased responsibility, it added

Article 35 of China's constitution lays down that "Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration, but, in practice, these freedoms have proved to be distinctly curtailed for China's citizens," the Nobel Prize Committee said.