Nobel Prizes: Year In Review 2010  Prize for Peace  Liu
XiaoboKyodo/APThe Chinese teacher, writer, and human rights
activist Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for
2010. Liu was the first Chinese citizen to win a Nobel Prize. In
making the award, the Norwegian Nobel Committee cited Liu’s
“long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in
China.” The committee expressed its belief that there was “a
close connection between human rights and peace” and, in a
rebuke to China, said that the country’s “new [economic] status
must entail increased responsibility.” When the announcement was
made in October, the recipient was in prison, serving an 11-year
sentence pronounced in 2009 for “inciting subversion of state
power.” This sentence resulted from his role in the writing and
promotion of Charter 08, a human rights manifesto issued in
December 2008 on the 60th anniversary of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. As the committee noted, “Through
the severe punishment meted out to him, L