Empty chair reserved for Liu Xiaobo at Nobel Peace Prize ceremony

The Nobel Committee today honoured jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo with this year's Nobel Peace Prize presented in absentia in Oslo, with none to represent the laureate.

Imprisoned in China and with close family members forbidden to leave the country, the laureate was represented at the prize ceremony in Oslo today by an empty chair.

Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland sat next to an empty chair with the Nobel Peace Prize medal and diploma during a ceremony honoring laureate Liu Xiaobo at city hall in Oslo, Norway today.

In Beijing, the Chinese authorities, who have been incensed by the choice of Liu, continued to pour vitriol on the award while intensifying their crackdown on scores of people they perceive as a threat.

For the first time in 75 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, no representative of the winner has been allowed to make the trip to receive the coveted golden peace medal, a diploma and the $1.5 million cheque that comes with it.

The last time that happened was in 1935, when Hitler prevented that year's winner, Count Carl von Ossietzky, who was imprisoned in a concentration camp, and indeed anyone from Germany from attending the ceremony.