Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese political prisoner who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, died due to multiple organ failures, the Chinese judicial bureau announced on Thursday, July 13. He was 61.
Xiaobo had liver cancer. He suffered respiratory failure as his condition worsened on Wednesday, July 12, the hospital said on its website. The mishandling of his treatment has sparked outrage among the public, especially the clandestine nature in which the government kept his prognosis under the wraps.
The First Hospital of China Medical University in Shenyang, located in northeast China, said tXiaobo's family had refused to have him put on artificial ventilation "to maintain life." The Nobel laureate had been sentenced to 11 years in prison by the Chinese government for promoting a pro-democracy charter.
"The hospital has explained the necessity of tracheal intubation to the patient's family, the family refused the tracheal intubation," the hospital said adding Xiaobo's liver function worsened despite the blood treatment.
Xiaobo was arrested in 2008, after he helped start a petition calling for democracy and an end to censorship in China. A year later, he was tried and convicted by a Beijing court for inciting subversion. Described as China's best-known dissident, Xiaobo rose to fame when he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 while in prison.
Xiaobo was kept under guard even as he was "close to death". His request to be flown out of China for treatment in either Germany or the US was also declined by the government which said that he was getting the best possible treatment from the doctors in the country. Critics alleged the government was afraid the Nobel laureate would launch an attack against the system in his final days.
Liu Xia, his wife, was also kept under house arrest and was forbidden from speaking about his health and cancer treatment. "Can't operate, can't do radiotherapy, can't do chemotherapy," Xia had said in a short video message to a friend when her husband's fatal condition was announced, the New York Times reported.
Xiaobo is the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate to have died in custody after German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky passed away at a hospital in 1938 while being held captive by the Nazis.
