Advertisement
Advertisement
Will Angela Merkel’s China visit include call to free Liu Xia?
Liu Xia, widow of the Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, remains under house arrest – nearly a year after her husband died of cancer in a Chinese prison. In a telephone call to her friend, Liao Yiwu, she lamented: “There’s nothing left to make me reluctant to leave this world … Xiaobo is gone.”
She is not alone. Since President Xi Jinping assumed office in 2012, China’s crackdown on dissent has been particularly distressing, for dissidents and their families alike.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel would do well to take up Liu’s case when she visits Beijing this month.
Despite the plight of China’s beleaguered dissidents and their families, world leaders are all too willing to discuss trade opportunities, while being loath to speak up about human rights.
Foreign diplomats blocked by security guards at home of Liu Xiaobo’s widow
Meanwhile, Liu Xia, whose only “crime” is that she was married to the prominent Chinese dissident, remains imprisoned in her own home while awaiting an act of goodwill, and a prayer, on her behalf.
Brian Stuckey, Denver
Post