Russia thinks Julian Assange deserves a Nobel Peace Prize

Public and non-governmental organisations should think of how to help him … Maybe, nominate him as a Nobel Prize laureate.
A source inside Dmitry Medvedev’s office • Offering Wikileaks the kind of head-scratching support that instantly suggests “ulterior motive.” While Russia’s at it, perhaps Russia can go in support of Liu Xiaobo at his Nobel Peace Prize ceremony tomorrow, in defiance of China. That’d really be helpful. This is just gibberish. source

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Are you asking about the peace prize thing? Regarding this event, our answer is ‘no comment,’ because we know nothing about it. Nobody has ever contacted us on this issue, and we only have secondhand information from journalists.
Taiwanese politician Lien Chan’s office manager • Expressing befuddlement at the peace prize offered to their boss by the chinese government. This is strange, because the Confucius Peace Prize was awarded to Lein, along with a $15,000 prize, which he’s supposed to accept on Thursday. If Lein doesn’t want it, we’ll take it. Then, right there, we’ll give the money to the long-suffering spouse of jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo. source

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» Who are these people? Besides China (duh), the countries are Afghanistan, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sudan, Tunisia, Venezuela, Vietnam and Ukraine. Most aren’t very surprising, but a couple (The Philippines, Russia) are. So why are they choosing to boycott Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony? Simple. China probably threatened economic retribution against countries that supported the ceremony. And China is powerful.

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The precondition for sentence reduction or parole is an acknowledgement of your crime. If Xiaobo would do that, he wouldn’t have won the peace prize.
Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo’s lawyer, Shang Baojun • Regarding his client’s current status in prison. As crazy as the Chinese democracy fighter’s incarceration is, his wife’s status is nearly as bad. Liu Xia is currently under house arrest for simply being married to the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. While she was allowed to meet her husband briefly, she’s been blocked off from the outside world since Friday night. Chinese authorities also broke her mobile phone. Her only contact with other life forms right now? Twitter. source

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Liu Xiaobo, posted by laihiu on Flickr

This of course doesn’t take away from Liu’s win at all. After a year when the Nobel Peace Prize committee faced heavy criticism for selecting the relatively fresh Obama as their pick, they’ve redeemed themselves by picking someone on the front lines of peace activism – only the third currently-incarcerated winner in the award’s history. (He’s serving 11 years in prison, a harsh sentence, on fairly minor charges.) Of course, China doesn’t see it that way, and it could – at least in the short term – do more harm than good for the world at large. Some (mostly unfortunate) side effects from the win:

one The first one is already happening – China is shutting down lines of communication, even blocking the word “Liu” from text messages.
two The win could have the opposite intended effect on human rights – causing Chinese dissidents harm as a direct result of Liu’s win.
three Norway’s economy could directly suffer as a result of the pick. China accounted for 3.7 percent of the Scandinavian country’s exports. source

09 Dec 2010 09:51