The United States has asked Beijing to allow ailing Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo to avail of treatment outside of China and release his wife from house arrest, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. The Donald Trump administration has repeated its plea to the Chinese authorities asking them to grant the rights activist full parole and allow them access to appropriate medical care.
“We remain concerned that both Liu and his family are unable to communicate with the outside world and that he is not free to seek the medical treatment of his choosing,” White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
Liu has been released from prison and is being treated for liver cancer in Liaoning province. He was arrested in 2008 after writing a pro-democracy manifesto called Charter 08, where he called for an end to one-party rule in China.
Beijing has not allowed the dissident to leave its borders till date and his doctors at the hospital in China have said that his condition is critical. Two foreign doctors, who were permitted to visit him last week, had contested the status report and said the activist was stable enough to be taken outside the country for treatment. “There still is a window of opportunity [to move Liu] but it is rapidly closing,” The Guardian quoted an unidentified official as saying.
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