The Norwegian Nobel Committee hopes Chinese
authorities will allow the wife of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize
winner Liu Xiaobo to travel to Oslo to accept the award on his
behalf, the panel's spokesman said.
Liu Xia has been under house arrest since the award to her human
rights activist husband was announced last month.
"This situation has not been resolved as of today, but we have
not given up entirely on the possibility of his wife coming,"
committee secretry Geir Lundestad told The Associated Press on
Tuesday.
If she cannot attend the Dec. 10 award ceremony, only a
representative who has been authorized by the couple can collect the
$1.5 million award, Lundestad said.
If no such representative is found, Lundestad said the event
would take place anyway,"but it may be that at the ceremony there
will no handing over of the diploma and the medal as there normally
is."
Instead, the committee would read a text written by the prize
winner, he said.
Liu Xiaobo is serving an 11-year sentence for subversion after
co-authoring a bold appeal known as Charter 08 calling for reforms
to the country's single-party Communist political system.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee honored Liu for 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.
China has accused the West of using the Nobel Prize to undermine
China and labels Liu a criminal.
However, the French government announced Tuesday that it will be
sending its ambassador in Norway to attend the Nobel Peace Prize
ceremony.
Last week, several diplomats said China had been pressuring
European governments to avoid the ceremony and not make any
statements in support of Liu.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said France's
ambassador always attended the ceremony and the "tradition will
continue this year".
Valero added that France's foreign minister has been in contact
with other European Union governments and they appeared to be leaning
toward the same decision as Paris.
Last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy used an official
visit by Chinese leader Hu Jintao to improve relations between the
two countries and announce big business deals between them.
Their
ties had been strained two years ago by Sarkozy's threat to boycott
the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics out of anger about
China's treatment of Tibet.
Sarkozy's red carpet treatment of Hu angered some human rights
groups and led to questions about how much public support France
would offer Liu. Sarkozy said he discussed human rights and Liu's
case with Hu but did not offer details.
