China slams Nobel prize for dissident as ‘disrespectful’

Giving the Nobel Peace Prize to a jailed dissident showed lack of respect for China’s legal system, the government said today, in further criticism of an award that has stirred tensions over human rights.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said that the prize, awarded to Liu Xiaobo, would not affect the direction of China’s political system, and repeated that it had damaged relations with Norway, where the peace prize committee is based.

“Giving the Nobel Peace Prize to a criminal serving a prison sentence shows a lack of respect for China’s judicial system,” Ma told a regular news briefing in Beijing.

China has condemned the Norwegian government, which has no say over the prize, and cancelled a planned meeting with a Norwegian fisheries minister.

A security officer gestures at the entrance of a residential compound where Liu’s wife lives in Beijing October 8, 2010






“The Chinese government and people have reason to express their dissatisfaction,” Ma said, adding Norway damaged ties by supporting the committee’s decision.

Diplomats from the European Union as well as Australia and Switzerland unsuccessfully tried to visit Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, in her apartment in western Beijing yesterday but were blocked.

The US Embassy urged China to lift any restrictions Liu Xia and earlier President Barack Obama called for Liu Xiaobo’s release.

Asked about Obama’s comments, Ma said: “We oppose anyone using this matter to stir up a fuss and oppose anyone interfering in China’s internal affairs.”

Liu is serving 11 years in jail on subversion charges for demanding democratic transformation of China’s one-party state, and his wife has sent out messages she is under house arrest in Beijing, according to news reports and overseas human rights groups.

China’s ruling Communist Party has long reacted angrily to pressure over its restrictions on political and legal rights of citizens, and the Nobel Prize for the prominent dissident has prompted testy official and vehement media comment in Beijing.

The Global Times, a popular tabloid run by Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, said in a commentary today that the Nobel committee members, who “live in luxury”, had no right to pass judgment on China’s legal system.

“This is not a dispute about democracy, but an incitement for ‘dissidents’ to break Chinese law,” it wrote. “The Cold War has long since ended, but it stains the hearts of some people still.”