Liu Xiaobo reunited with family outside jail for first time in 8 years, says friend
Wife and brother visited Nobel Peace Prize winner in hospital, close friend says, as US politicians call for him to be treated for terminal liver cancer in the United States
Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, who was released from a Chinese jail on medical parole last month after a terminal cancer diagnosis, has been reunited with his family members outside prison for the first time in eight years, the South China Morning Post has learned.
Meanwhile, US politicians want Liu, a political activist who was jailed for 11 years on subversion charges, to be allowed to fly to America for treatment – a request his wife Liu Xia was said to have been pushing for.
Ye Du, a Guangzhou-based pro-democracy activist, said Liu was visited by his wife and younger brother Liu Xiaoxuan a week ago in the Shenyang hospital in Liaoning province where he is receiving treatment for liver cancer.
The family told Ye, a close friend of Liu Xiaobo, that they were under “intense pressure”.
“Everyone is being closely monitored and they’ve been ordered to keep quiet by the authorities as of today,” Ye said.
“All of his friends want to see him get the best medical care possible, preferably overseas. We all clearly know he is not going to get effective treatment here in China,” Ye said. “But it depends on his own will and whether Beijing will allow it. Judging on the current trend, it’s quite unlikely for that to happen,” he added.