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The Nobel Foundation
Marcus Storch
P.O. Box 5232
10245 Stockholm
Berlin, 3rd Februar 2010
Dear Mr Storch,
Have two months really passed since the Nobel week in December? Nevertheless I wish you the very best for 2010. I very much hope to see you in Berlin before long.
I have urgent request to make to you today. As you know, Vaclav Havel nominated the Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo for the Nobel Peace Prize 2010. Liu Xiaobo has been the president of the Chinese PEN association of independent writers since 2003 and is one of the initiators of the CHARTER 08, which calls for a democratic society – in the footsteps of Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia.
For years Liu Xiaobo has been fighting for the implementation of human rights in China, with all the risks that this entails. He has been already served numerous prison sentences. Other signatories of the CHARTER 08 were imprisoned along with him. "Reporters Without Borders" has named Zhang Zhuhua in Beijing, Chen Xi, Shen Youlin and Du Heping.
In 2008 he was imprisoned on the day before the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was on this day of human rights that the CHARTER 08 went public. On 24 December 2009, Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison for his political engagement.
I, too, believe that Liu Xiaobo deserves the Nobel Peace Prize because in the face of countless threats from the Chinese regime and great risk to his life, he has fought unerringly for the freedom of the individual.
Dear Marcus Storch, I know that as a Literary Nobel laureate I am not allowed to nominate candidates for the Novel Peace Prize. But I am writing to ask you to pass on my support for Liu Xiaobo to Norway.
With best wishes,
Herta Müller
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