Nobel Peace Prize 2010--The Missing Laureate

Here's where Liu Xiaobo would have appeared onstage to the receive the Nobel Peace Prize.  During the presentation ceremony in Oslo today, Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland placed the Peace Prize on the empty chair. 

In the Laureate's absence, Norwegian actress and director Liv Ullman read aloud a statement written by Liu shortly before his imprisonment.  You can read the full text here.

Nobel Prize Week--Peace

"For his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China," Liu Xiaobo has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010.  

But chances are he won't be publicly accepting the award and delivering the traditional speech in Oslo.  He's currently serving an eleven-year prison term in China for "inciting subversion of state power."  (Liu Xiaobo has insisted that "Opposition is not equivalent to subversion.")

China's leadership has been described as "livid."  The spokesperson for China's foreign office called the selection "an obscenity."

Liu Xiaobo is the first Chinese citizen to be awarded a Nobel Prize, and the third Laureate to be awarded the Peace Prize while incarcerated.  (The others are Carl von Ossietzky and Aung San Suu Kyi.)

Read more about Liu Xiaobo here.  And follow this evolving story with your students.