Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I want to put on the record my delight at the Nobel committee’s decision to award the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo for his non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China. Liu participated in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, for which he was jailed and then sent to a labour camp for three years. He was a leading author of Charter 08, an open letter signed by 300 Chinese citizens calling for, among other things, freedom of speech, of the press and of association, an independent judiciary and direct elections. The charter was published on 10 December 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Liu has been jailed for 11 years for his part in Charter 08.

In announcing the prize, the Nobel committee noted that China has achieved enormous economic advances, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, but that its new status entails increased responsibility. Liu himself has pointed out that many of the principles set out in Charter 08 are enshrined in China’s own constitution. As George Walden wrote in Bloomberg:

Liu isn’t preaching violent revolt. On the contrary, he insists that the road to democracy must be “gradual, peaceful, well ordered and controlled.”

Walden considers that perhaps it is the ‘dangerous reasonableness’ of Liu’s approach that riles the Chinese leadership most. Liu, who was told about the award by his wife when visiting him in prison, said he would dedicate the award to the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. I pay tribute to the courage and the struggle for freedom of Liu Xiaobo and his fellow pro-democracy protestors— (Time expired)