One in a line of Chinese activists nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
Liu Xiaobo has become only the second Chinese to win the Nobel Peace Prize, but many others have been nominated before him during the nation's long struggle for democracy and freedom.
There is no official confirmation of other Chinese nominated for the peace prize since 1956, as all information is supposed to be kept secret for 50 years under Norwegian Nobel Committee regulations. But the media have reported the nomination of several prominent Chinese activists in the past few years.
In 2005, 108 Chinese women were chosen by a Swiss-based foundation as candidates for Nobel Peace Prize nomination. Gao Yaojie, an 83-year-old grass-roots doctor who had for years offered the public basic knowledge about how to prevent Aids, was one of those on the list. Gao had been under house arrest for couple of years and fled to the United States last year.
Hu Jia, 37, an Aids activist and a dissident, has been nominated every year since 2008. Hu was jailed for 31/2 years in April 2008 for 'inciting subversion of state power'.
Wei Jingsheng, 60, was another nominee for last year's Nobel Peace Prize. He was an activist in the democracy movement in the late 1970s and now lives in the US.
This year's nominees also included activist-lawyer Gao Zhisheng, activist Chen Guangcheng and Rebiya Kadeer, the chairwoman of World Uygur Congress, also exiled in the US.
