Liu Xiaobo - Nobel Peace Laureate

Liu Xiaobo, one of the most outspoken critics of the Chinese government, spent a year and a half in prison after the 1989 Tiananmen Square peaceful protests, and in 1996 was imprisoned for three years for criticizing China's policy toward Taiwan and the Dalai Lama. In 2009, he was sentenced to a further 11 years for co-authoring Charter 08, a petition to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 2010 Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and Human Rights Watch's Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism for his fearless commitment to freedom of expression and assembly in China.