Empty chair left for jailed Chinese Nobel laureate

[Valin]

AP/Townhall:

12/10/10

When ambassadors, royalty and other VIPs take their seats in Oslo's modernist City Hall on Friday for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, there will be one chair left empty _ for this year's winner.

Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, a democracy activist, is serving an 11-year prison sentence in China on subversion charges brought after he co-authored a bold call for sweeping changes to Beijing's one-party communist political system.

Chinese authorities have placed Liu's supporters, including his wife Liu Xia, under house arrest to prevent anyone from picking up his prize.

(Snip)