BREAKING NEWS

China says backers of Nobel winner support crime

BEIJING — China said Thursday that supporters of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo were encouraging crime in China and should stop interfering in his case.
China has been issuing angry statements and rejecting calls for Liu's release since the Norwegian Nobel Committee honored him Oct. 8 for his more than two decades of advocacy of human rights and peaceful democratic change that started with the demonstrations at Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989.
The 54-year-old literary critic is serving an 11-year prison term after being convicted of inciting subversion over his role in writing an influential 2008 manifesto for political reform.