He is China's number one dissident, described in the press here as a criminal, for others a hero of Chinese democracy. Either way, Liu Xiaobo's collapsing body is at the heart of a struggle to control the message over the meaning of his fast approaching death. China's dying Nobel Peace Prize winner is at the centre of an information war. The country's state-run media say Liu Xiaobo's cancer "mustn't be politicised" as they publish leaked recordings of him under surveillance while in jail and now in hospital. International human rights groups say they are dismayed he is still being held under guard to the very end and the German government says China's security forces are running the treatment of this terminally ill patient rather than doctors.
