SHENYANG, China — Imprisoned for all the seven years since he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Liu Xiaobo never renounced the pursuit of human rights in China, insisting on living a life of “honesty, responsibility and dignity.” China’s most prominent political prisoner died Thursday of liver cancer at 61. Liu, 61, was a lifelong advocate for democracy and freedom who was jailed by the Chinese authorities multiple times. Liu had been transferred to the hospital after being diagnosed with advanced liver cancer in prison in May but remained under police custody. Liu died Thursday while on medical parole in northeastern China's Shenyang city, where he was being treated for liver cancer. Liu's supporters and foreign governments had urged China to allow him to receive treatment abroad, but Chinese authorities insisted he was receiving the best care possible for a disease that had spread throughout his body. Liu was imprisoned for the first time in connection with the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 while serving his fourth and final prison sentence, for inciting subversion by advocating sweeping political reforms and greater human rights in China. The death of the Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, who died on Thursday while serving an 11-year prison sentence, has prompted an outpouring of grief and rage around the world. "Liu Xiaobo's purported crime was no crime at all, but rather a visionary exposition on the potential future of a country he loved." In 2010, while Liu was serving his sentence in a prison in a small city in China’s northeast, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, with the Norwegian-based committee citing Liu’s “long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.”

The award enraged China’s government, which condemned it as a political farce. He is survived by his wife Liu Xia who has been placed under house arrest since the time of her husband being awarded the Nobel award. “It is a sad and disturbing fact that the representatives of the free world, who themselves hold democracy and human rights in high regard, are less willing to stand up for those rights for the benefit of others,” said the organization’s chairwoman, Berit Reiss-Andersen.
Prominent Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo dies.