China has invited US and German doctors to help treat the country’s most famous dissident, after revelations he has final-stage liver cancer gave fresh impetus to global calls for his release.
Liu Xiaobo, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, was sentenced the previous year to 11 years in prison for “subversion of state power” after authoring Charter 08, an online manifesto calling for constitutional reform and multi-party democracy that was signed by hundreds of Chinese intellectuals.
Late last month he was granted medical parole to be treated at a research hospital in the north-eastern city of Shenyang, but he remains a prisoner and activists have expressed doubt that he was being given the best attention available.