For the first time in 75 years the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to someone imprisoned in their own country.
This year’s winner, Liu Xiaobo, is serving an 11 year sentence in China as a political prisoner.
In 1935, Carl von Ossietzky was awarded the prize while being held as a political prisoner in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Within 10 years the Nazis were reviled around the globe. Von Ossietzky was dead, but he now has a university named after him.
This move took a whole lot more guts than last year’s pointless award to Barack Obama. Let’s hope they keep this up next year.
Just trying to keep my blog blocked by Chinese servers …
