Six nations decline invitation to Liu Nobel gala

[robcon]

Source: Reuters

OSLO (Reuters) – Six countries declined invitations to the December 10 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo after an unprecedented campaign by China to sabotage attendance, the Norwegian Nobel Committee told Reuters.

The six nations that declined are Russia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Morocco, Iraq and China itself. They gave no reason for declining, said Geir Lundestad, secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the accolade.

China has sent letters to foreign ministries and embassies urging diplomats to stay away from the ceremony in Oslo and warning of "consequences" for those who support the pro-democracy activist.

Lundestad said China had mounted a campaign to persuade diplomats to avoid the awards ceremony in Oslo, and had returned all mail sent by the Committee unopened."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101118/wl_nm/us_norway_nobel

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The thugocracies have spoken: China, Cuba, Russia, North Korea, etc.

[GodlessBiker]

1. When will that chick show up who gets paid to make pro-China posts on DU?

[herbm]

2. Not Kazakhstan!!!!!!! Not one of the countries acoourding to W that make up our grand confederation

in Afghanistan!!!! Not those freedom loving people!!!!!

[Cherchez la Femme]

3. And what of Iraq?

you know, the one the U.S. virtually controls?

[madrchsod]

4. china is a major investor in the iraqi oil fields.

their investment is paid for by the american consumers and the blood of thier children.

iraq is`t going to bite that hand that feeds them.

[MattyGroves]

8. Well Iraq's president said he wasn't going to sign Aziz's death sentence

But I read elsewhere that the ruling body can basically tell the "prez" to F Off and string Aziz up regardless.

I imagine Iraq will be changing their tune soon enough.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. Morocco seems weird on that list

[David__77]

6. Liu Xiaobo: advocate of Western colonization of China

Liu: "After undergoing a hundred years of colonial rule, Hong Kong has become what it is now. The mainland is so big that it certainly needs 300-years of colonization by the West to achieve Hong Kong's progress. I even doubt 300 years are enough."

Of course, he doesn't advocate outright colonization, but rather indirect colonization through subservience to the West politically and economically.

This criticism of Liu in no way indicates that I think that he should be jailed - I do not. That said, I think this award is worthless.

BTW, no one needs to pay posters who may have sympathy with China, Cuba, or any other state. There are plenty on the left who have this view.

[pampango]

7. May not be awarded. "Chinese displeasure risks Nobel prize delay"

http://www.smh.com.au/world/chinese-displeasure-risks-nobel-prize-delay-20101119-1810i.html

Beijing's response has not been subtle. It has warned foreign governments to stay away from the December 10 ceremony and it has placed dozens of Chinese dissidents and intellectuals under various forms of detention or surveillance.

The reaction has been so hostile that the Nobel committee, for the first time in the postwar era, said that the central part of the peace prize ceremony - the bestowing of a medal and 10 million kronor ($1.7 million) in cash - would probably be postponed, given that neither Mr Liu nor any of his family were likely to attend.

During the depths of the Cold War, when the Soviet physicist and human rights advocate Andrei Sakharov was awarded the Nobel peace prize, the Kremlin barred him from leaving the country. But the authorities allowed his wife to collect the award in his stead.

Confronted with a similar challenge in 1983, Polish authorities permitted the wife of the trade unionist Lech Walesa to travel to Oslo on his behalf. In 1991, the son of the Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi delivered the acceptance speech for his mother, who was under house arrest.


Liu Xiaobo ... peace medal may be
the first uncollected in 74 years.

This won't mean that Mr. Liu isn't the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner; just that the actual awarding of the medal and cash will be suspended. A nice way to keep China's treatment of Mr Liu in the news indefinitely.

I think that China's paranoid big shots may have successfully shot themselves in the foot. Even the Soviet Union, Poland and Burma found ways to get the news of an embarrassing Peace Prize award out of the headlines as quickly as possible by letting family members of the winner collect the award while continuing to detain the actual winner.