And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to... an empty chair as China stops relatives of jailed dissident from attending ceremony

• Guest slow-handclap to protest at Liu Xiaobo's 11-year imprisonment on charges of subversion
• Impassioned plea from chairman for economic improvement to be accompanied by improved human rights

For the first time in 74 years, nobody showed up to accept the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday.
An empty chair and a giant portrait were used to represent jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo at the award ceremony in Oslo.
In a moving tribute, there were two standing ovations for the 54-year-old literary critic, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence for daring to speak out against China’s communist regime.

Significant absence: Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman, Thorbjorn Jagland, sits next to an empty chair that should have been occupied by Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, whose picture adorns the wall

The chairman of the Nobel Prize committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, demanded Mr Liu’s immediate release, a sentiment echoed by U.S. President Barack Obama, a peace prize laureate last year.
Foreign Secretary William Hague also highlighted the work of human rights defenders, this year’s theme. ‘We have to be resolute and determined in standing up for those who are denied the rights and freedoms we enjoy, while striving to be an inspiring example of them ourselves,’ he said.
But the spectacle incensed the Chinese, who banned the winner’s family from travelling to Norway to collect the £900,000 prize and blacked out TV screens across China to prevent any broadcasts of the ceremony.

'China on trial': Dignitaries attend the Peace Prize ceremony which Beijing derided as a farce and lobbied intensively for allies to avoid - 16 other countries failed to send diplomats

Both the BBC and CNN went off air there at exactly the time the award was being presented.
Mr Liu’s wife, Xia, was said to be under house arrest in Beijing yesterday.

Supporting freedom: Denzel Washington and his wife Pauletta look on before the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo

The last time a Nobel Peace Prize was not handed out was in 1936 when Adolf Hitler prevented German pacifist Carol von Ossietzky from accepting his award.
The prize can be collected only by the laureate or close family members.
Cold War dissidents Andrei Sakharov, of the Soviet Union, and Lech Walesa, of Poland, were able to have their wives collect their prizes for them and Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi’s award was accepted by her 18-year-old son in 1991.
China also put pressure on 19 other countries, including Russia, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, to boycott the ceremony.
But about 1,000 guests showed up at Oslo City Hall, including Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Hollywood actor Denzel Washington.
Mr Jagland said the award was not meant as a slight to China.
‘We can to a certain degree say that China with its 1.3billion people is carrying mankind’s fate on its shoulders,’ he added.
Mr Liu was closely involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations and more recently helped found the reform group Charter 08.

Showing their support: Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi with her husband Paul and the actress Anne Hathaway at the ceremony in Oslo

Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann read out an address he made during his trial for subversion a year ago.
It concluded: ‘I, filled with optimism, look forward to the advent of a future, free China. For there is no force that can put an end to the human quest for freedom.’

'THERE IS NOTHING CRIMINAL IN ANYTHING I HAVE DONE'

Not a great deal is known about Liu Xiaobo, but the following are highlights of the address made to court by Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo during his trial for subversion in December 2009.

'I have no enemies and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested, and interrogated me, none of the prosecutors who indicted me, and none of the judges who judged me are my enemies.
'Although there is no way I can accept your monitoring, arrests, indictments, and verdicts, I respect your professions and your integrity, including those of the two prosecutors, Zhang Rongge and Pan Xueqing, who are now bringing charges against me on behalf of the prosecution. During interrogation on December 3, I could sense your respect and your good faith.

'Hatred can rot away at a person's intelligence and conscience. Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society's tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation's progress toward freedom and democracy.
'That is why I hope to be able to transcend my personal experiences as I look upon our nation's development and social change, to counter the regime's hostility with utmost goodwill, and to dispel hatred with love.

'It is precisely because of such convictions and personal experience that I firmly believe that China's political progress will not stop, and I, filled with optimism, look forward to the advent of a future free China. For there is no force that can put an end to the human quest for freedom, and China will in the end become a nation ruled by law, where human rights reign supreme.
'I also hope that this sort of progress can be reflected in this trial as I await the impartial ruling of the collegial bench - a ruling that will withstand the test of history.

'If I may be permitted to say so, the most fortunate experience of these past twenty years has been the selfless love I have received from my wife, Liu Xia. She could not be present as an observer in court today, but I still want to say to you, my dear, that I firmly believe your love for me will remain the same as it has always been.
'Throughout all these years that I have lived without freedom, our love was full of bitterness imposed by outside circumstances, but as I savour its aftertaste, it remains boundless. I am serving my sentence in a tangible prison, while you wait in the intangible prison of the heart.
'Your love is the sunlight that leaps over high walls and penetrates the iron bars of my prison window, stroking every inch of my skin, warming every cell of my body, allowing me to always keep peace, openness, and brightness in my heart, and filling every minute of my time in prison with meaning.

'There is nothing criminal in anything I have done. [But] if charges are brought against me because of this, I have no complaints.'

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk