Who Gets Nobel Prize Money When Winner Is Jailed?     (Oct. 8) -- Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo is the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize to be honored while behind bars. So how does an imprisoned recipient collect the $1.5 million award? The money will be held in trust for him until he or his wife can collect it, Professor Geir Lundestad, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, told AOL News. Given the furious reaction of the Chinese government, it appears doubtful that Liu will be released to attend the black-tie Oslo awards banquet in December. Today, Liu's wife said plainclothes police escorted her from her Beijing apartment to keep her from talking to reporters, Reuters news agency reported. Liu, a 54-year-old academic, poet and writer, has been repeatedly detained since he assumed a leading role in China's volatile pro-Democracy movement in Tiananmen Square by staging a hunger strike and then negotiating the 1989 peaceful retreat of student demonstrators under the hostile glares of thousands of armed Chinese soldiers. He is currently serving an 11-year sentence for subversion. Chinese state media immediately blacked out news of the prize and blocked Internet websites, The Associated Press reported. China declared the decision would harm its relations with Norway -- and the Nordic country responded that was a petty thing for a world power to do. Previous peace laureates blocked from accepting their prizes comprise a short list. The most recent example is Aung San Suu Kyi, the Myanmar human rights activist who has been under house arrest for nearly 14 years. Her medal, cash award and diploma are being held for her, Lundestad told AOL News. Russian dissident and nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov was honored for his stance against nuclear proliferation in 1975 but forbidden from leaving the Soviet Union to collect his prize. His wife accepted it and read a speech by him at the awards ceremony in Norway. Likewise, Polish Solidarity labor union founder Lech Walesa was unable to leave Poland in 1983, fearing the communist government would not allow him to return. His wife, Danuta, accepted the peace prize on his behalf. Walesa, an electrician who was imprisoned and persecuted for bringing workers' rights to a Gdansk shipyard, eventually became president of Poland and served from 1990 to 1995. Along with fellow peace prize recipients the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, Walesa and several international groups and politicians nominated Liu for this year's honor. His wife, Liu Xia, had not expected him to win. "I can hardly believe it because my life has been filled with too many bad things," she said in an emotional interview with Cable TV, a Hong Kong-based broadcaster, Reuters reported. "This prize is not only for Xiaobo but for everyone working for human rights and justice in China." After the Nobel announcement, she told Reuters in a phone interview that police were removing her from her home. "They want to distance me from the media," she said. Despite the government's television and Internet bans, photos and comments from Chinese citizens managed to leak out on social networking sites, including this photograph posted on Twitter showing reporters outside Liu's Beijing apartment. Last year's recipient of the prize called on China to release Liu as soon as possible. "Last year, I noted that so many others who have received the award had sacrificed so much more than I," President Barack Obama said in a statement. "That list now includes Mr. Liu, who has sacrificed his freedom for his beliefs. By granting the prize to Mr. Liu, the Nobel Committee has chosen someone who has been an eloquent and courageous spokesman for the advance of universal values through peaceful and nonviolent means, including his support for democracy, human rights and the rule of law." |
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