

Chinese Govt. Blacks Out News of Dissident Liu Winning The Nobel Peace Prize - sharadgopal
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130420244

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sspencer
_"It was not clear if Liu himself had been told about the Nobel."_

This has to be one of the first, if not _the_ first case of someone winning a
Nobel Peace Prize and not being immediately allowed to know they'd won. The
article mentions that he is the first to win it while still imprisoned, as
opposed to simply under house arrest. Imagine winning one of humanity's
highest honors, but the very censorious state you fought against keeps you
from knowing even that simple fact!

~~~
strebler
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11499098>

" _Mrs Liu said police had informed her they would take her to Mr Liu's prison
in the north-eastern province of Liaoning on Saturday so she could give him
the news._ "

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gruseom
I'm not big on the Nobel Peace Prize, though I guess they're improving their
average over last year. But man, I love Norway:

 _China declared the decision would harm its relations with Norway - and the
Nordic country responded that was a petty thing for a world power to do._

~~~
rjett
That sentence made me laugh out loud. If this sentence were illustrated in a
political cartoon, I would picture a Chinese Goliath sitting down to have tea
at the table of international relations and being scolded by an old Nordic
spinster for manners unbecoming of a young world power.

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CWuestefeld
That ought to be "Chinese Govt. Blacks Out News of Dissident _Liu_ Winning The
Nobel Peace Prize". As originally written, it was kind of like saying "News of
Dissident Bob..."

The Chinese put their family name first, and the given name second. Sometimes
it's ambiguous because you don't know if the media report is westernizing the
presentation. But in this case it's clearly wrong, because the two-syllable
"Xiaobo" _must_ be a given name because it's got two syllables.

~~~
jteo
The chinese given name is not always comprised exactly of 2 syllables; there
are single syllable chinese given names.

~~~
andrew1
I know nothing about Chinese names but the original comment might have meant
that it must be a given name because a family cannot have two syllables. No
idea if that's true or not though!

~~~
barkingcat
chinese family names can have multiple syllables. Not often, but they do
exist. Most times it's caried from ancestry that's not han chinese but there
are so many ethnicities and so much intermixing within china that family name
no longer carries any signifiers to bloodline, etc

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miguelpais
"Attempts to send mobile text messages with the Chinese characters for Liu
Xiaobo failed."

Not only the internet, but also the text messaging channels are under
censorship. China looks like a country that came out of a political horror
movie.

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phugoid
I think we all have it in ourselves to be petty dictators, even to the point
of convincing ourselves it's for the greater good.

When we have a teaspoon of power as parents, managers or customers, is it not
tempting to hide the truth and impose our wills without concern for our
subordinates?

I have to work on this constantly as a father. The greatest thing is when I
loosen the reins and give my 3 year old son more freedom, and he comes around
to do the "right thing" without being forced. I'm so much prouder of him than
if he was just following me out of fear.

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ComputerGuru
I don't understand what they hope to accomplish. I can understand the (flawed)
reasoning behind blacking-out news regarding certain events, such as how the
Chinese government handles protesters, human rights violations in China, etc.

But this news item is a single fact. There aren't any "details" to cover up -
the fact, comprised of a single statement "The noble peace prize is being
given to a Chinese dissident" is nothing you can cover up. It's a single,
standalone declaration, you can't apply spin, you can't really do _anything_
with it, other than simply know that it occurred. This kind of stuff is hard
to "black-out" and it's rather pointless to do so.

The only way to combat news items like this would be to attack it, not hide
it.

~~~
lenni
Years ago I started to wonder how long China could keep this whole game of
censorship. I thought that they would inevitably become more open as their
contact with foreign countries increased.

This hasn't happened, has it? What I see instead is an ever increasing and
pretty scary control apparatus.

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garply
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Xiaobo> is unsurprisingly blocked.

~~~
jmaygarden
That wikipedia page states that Liu's lawyers informed him today that he won
the Nobel Peace Prize.

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known
Is it possible to know who _proposed_ Xiaobo for Nobel?

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jgrahamc
This hardly seems like a surprise.

