Author:
Publication: NDTV.com
Date: December 8, 2010
URL: http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/in-us-china-compared-to-nazis-for-nobel-controversy-71275
US lawmakers have compared China to Nazi Germany
as the State Department urged Beijing to free Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu
Xiaobo, set to receive the honour for his campaign for democratic reforms.
Republican Representative Frank Wolf said China was joining the infamous World
War II regime of Adolf Hitler -- as well as the Soviet Union and Myanmar --
by barring the peace laureate from attending Friday's ceremony in Norway.
"China should be ashamed and China should be embarrassed to be in the
company of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Burma," Wolf said at a
press conference with other lawmakers to call for Liu's immediate release.
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in October to Liu, who was jailed in December
2009 for 11 years on subversion charges after co-authoring "Charter 08,"
a manifesto calling for democratic reform in one-party China.
Wolf hailed Democratic House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi's plans to attend the ceremony, saying her presence would "send
a powerful message" that Washington stands with Chinese advocates of
democratic reforms and broader human rights.
The US House of Representatives was expected to vote soon on a symbolic resolution,
crafted by Republican Chris Smith, honouring Liu and urging Beijing to free
him.
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican on the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, said Beijing must listen to critics of its "warped
political system" and demanded Liu and his wife be set free "at
once."
She noted that Nazi Germany blocked the 1935 laureate, Carl von Ossietzky,
from attending his award ceremony, while Moscow barred Soviet dissident Andrei
Sakharov in 1975, and Myanmar's military rulers stopped democracy icon Aung
San Suu Kyi from attending hers in 1991.
"Beijing now joins the ranks of the infamous Nazi regime and the repressive
Burmese junta in locking up a Nobel Peace prize winner," she said, demanding
"rulers of Beijing, have you no shame?"
Shortly after the press conference, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg
called human rights in China "an important subject matter" in ties
between the two countries and called for Liu's release.
"We hope that China will take positive steps on human rights including
the release of Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo," Steinberg stressed in an address
on China at the Center for American Progress think tank in Washington.