Liu Xiaobo

Liu Xiaobo  born 28 December 1955 is a Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist who called for democratic reforms and the end ofcommunist one-party rule in China. He is currently incarcerated as a political prisoner in the People's Republic of China, and was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.

He has served as President of the Independent Chinese PEN Center since 2003. On 8 December 2008, Liu was detained in response to his participation with Charter 08. He was formally arrested on 23 June 2009, on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power." He was tried on the same charges on 23 December 2009, and sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment and two years' deprivation of political rights on 25 December 2009.

During his 4th prison term, he was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China. He is the first Chinese person to be awarded a Nobel Prize of any kind while residing in China. He is the fourth person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while in prison or detention, after Nazi Germany's Carl von Ossietzky (1935), the Soviet Union's Andrei Sakharov (1975), and Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi(1991). And Liu is the first person since Von Ossietzky to be denied the right to have a representative collect the Nobel prize for him.