China’s Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo died Thursday while still in custody following a battle with cancer, authorities said, after officials ignored international pleas to let him spend his final days free and abroad. The legal bureau in the northeastern city of Shenyang said on its website that Liu died three days after going into intensive care at the First Hospital of China Medical University. At the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo in 2010 he was represented by an empty chair. His wife, Liu Xia, was placed under house arrest in 2010, but she was allowed to see him at the hospital. Her fate will now worry human rights groups, which had urged the government to free her alongside Liu Xiaobo.

Source: Hindustan Times July 13, 2017 13:41 UTC