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Liu Xiaobo: 'I Have No Enemies'

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

09/12/2010

BBC Radio 4 - Liu Xiaobo: 'I Have No Enemies'

A profile of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, jailed human rights campaigner in China.

A profile of this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, imprisoned in China after campaigning for human rights. Presented by former BBC Beijing correspondent Carrie Gracie.

As Oslo prepares to host the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony tomorrow night, this year's winner, the Chinese author and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo will not be collecting his award. His absence at the ceremony will be marked by an empty chair. A powerful image which, says the Nobel Committee, makes this year's Peace Prize even more significant.

Liu Xiaobo is an academic who has spent the last twenty-five years writing about Chinese society and calling for non-violent change in China. Despite having written 11 books and over 900 articles, and been imprisoned four times, he was not widely known - until October 8th 2010 when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Featuring exclusive interviews with Liu Xiaobo's friends, colleagues and fellow campaigners, this documentary presented by Carrie Gracie the BBC's former Beijing correspondent, offers a unique insight into the man the Norwegian Nobel Committee call, "a symbol for all human rights activists in China". She follows his journey from pugnacious teenager to rational intellectual, and reveals why the Chinese government consider him such a threat that they have banned his writing and sentenced him to eleven years in prison. 

Since the Peace Prize announcement, many of those closest to Liu Xiaobo have been placed under house arrest or put under surveillance by the Chinese authorities. Despite the restrictions the programme includes revelatory interviews with Zhou Duo, Liu's friend with whom he went on hunger strike at Tiananmen Square during the 1989 protests, Mo Shaoping, his lawyer, and Professor Xu Youyu, a signatory of Charter 08, the manifesto that landed Liu Xiaobo in jail. There is also a rare interview with poet, Liao Yiwu, who helps get under the skin of this year's Peace Prize Laureate, explaining the thinking and the motivation of the man behind the award. As well as exploring Liu Xiaobo's personal journey, Lu Xiaobo: "I Have No Enemies" looks at the wider picture for dissidents inside China, hearing from others who have suffered censorship and abuse because they are not free to express their views on the Chinese government. 

Producers : Melissa Fitzgerald and Claudine Parrish
A Blakeway Production for BBC Radio 4.

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