Birth of Liu Xiaobo

Liu Xiaobo was born on 28 December 1955 in Changchun. A Chinese literary critic, professor and human rights activist, Liu was one of the most prominent dissidents in the country. He took part in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, helping to negotiate the peaceful withdrawal of students on the final night, and was repeatedly imprisoned afterward. He was a principal author of Charter 08, a manifesto calling for political reform and constitutional democracy, and was sentenced to eleven years for inciting subversion of state power. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 while in prison and died in custody, still under guard, in 2017.

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