BEIJING — Chinese authorities have refused permission for Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Peace laureate paroled from prison for cancer treatment, to go abroad for care, one of his lawyers said Thursday.
The authorities did not explain the rejection, according to the lawyer, Shang Baojun. The news undermined hopes among supporters of Liu, a writer and dissident, that he might be freed altogether, if not allowed to leave China. He remains under police guard in a hospital.
There have been signs that China’s leaders were growing sensitive to the international attention that Liu’s case has received, especially allegations that the government had effectively caused him to become gravely ill by failing to treat his liver cancer while he was incarcerated.
The judicial department of the northeastern province of Liaoning, where Liu has been serving his sentence and is being treated, released a statement Wednesday evening saying that he had received regular checkups in prison and that the cancer had been detected only a month ago.
That followed the release of a video of Liu in prison — the first public glimpse of him since he was sentenced in 2009 — showing him exercising and undergoing what appeared to be routine medical tests.
The statement said that a team of specialists had convened to oversee Liu’s treatment on June 7, apparently leading to the decision to transfer him from his jail cell on medical parole. The condition of Liu, 61, was not clear from the statement, though his lawyers and friends, citing his wife, said that his cancer was so advanced that there appeared to be little hope of recovery.
New York Times
Dozens of prominent writers have appealed directly to China’s president, Xi Jinping, to grant Liu unrestricted medical care, including the opportunity to leave the country if he chooses. The appeal, organized by PEN America, also urged the authorities to free Liu’s wife, the poet Liu Xia, who has been under house arrest since 2010 even though she has never been charged with a crime. Liu Xia has appealed for her husband to be allowed to seek treatment abroad.
“We applaud your decision to grant him medical parole, and hope that it will be accompanied with due regard for the steps necessary to ensure that, however much time he may have, he is afforded the dignity and autonomy that every human being deserves,’’ read the letter, which was signed by about 50 authors, including Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, J.M. Coetzee, Philip Roth, and Salman Rushdie.
Freedom Now, an advocacy organization in Washington, D.C., on Thursday released a similar appeal, signed by 154 Nobel laureates in each of the prize’s disciplines.The letter, addressed to Xi, called for Liu and his wife to be allowed to travel to the United States.
It would be highly unusual for the government to grant someone like Liu leniency. A leader of the protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, he was one of the main organizers of a public appeal in December 2008 for greater democracy in China, which became known as Charter 08. He was swiftly arrested; the following year, he was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 for his “long and nonviolent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.’’ He was represented at the ceremony in Oslo by an empty chair.
Xi, who is preparing for a Communist Party congress in the fall that is expected to consolidate his authority, has overseen a crackdown on dissent since rising to power in 2012.
The new US ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, raised the possibility on Wednesday of Liu’s release for medical treatment “elsewhere.’’ Speaking to reporters, he also promised to use his personal relationship with Xi, whom he met during a Chinese trade delegation’s visit to Iowa in 1985, to help President Trump address thorny issues in the US-China relationship like human rights.
Branstad did not explicitly appeal for Liu’s release, and it was not clear whether any efforts were underway behind the scenes to negotiate one.
Trump is expected to meet with Xi at the Group of 20 summit meeting in Germany next week. The details of their meeting, which is expected to focus on North Korea’s nuclear weapons, are still being worked out, China’s vice foreign minister, Li Baodong, said at a briefing Thursday.
