Liu Xiaobo, China's most famous political prisoner, 'close to death'
6 July 2017 5:38 PM GMT
The condition of China's most famous political prisoner, the democracy campaigner and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, has worsened, family friends and local reports have said. Liu, 61, was jailed in 2009 for allegedly trying to topple China's one-party state. He was given medical parole last month after being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer.
The dissident writer has been receiving treatment at a hospital in the north-eastern city of Shenyang where, according to one report, he has been separated from other patients and is guarded by plainclothes agents from China's paramilitary armed police.
Writing on Twitter on Thursday, Ye Du, a dissident poet and family friend, said Liu's condition had worsened and that relatives had been told he did not have much more time to live. Citing medical staff and another family friend, the Hong Kong broadcaster RTHK reported that doctors had stopped giving Liu medication because he was too weak for treatment. He was also no longer able to eat. Yang Jianli, the friend, told RTHK Liu had developed a kidney problem as a result of the accumulation of fluid in his abdomen.
A photograph that circulated among friends and activists on Thursday showed a visibly emaciated Liu standing beside his wife, the writer Liu Xia. Liu's worsening health has distressed his friends and many admirers. For the Chinese government it represents a public relations disaster, coming on the eve of the G20 summit in Hamburg.
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