Friends of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo have called on authorities to allow them to visit, as Liu’s health reportedly declines. The Nobel Peace Prize winner was jailed for “subversion” for 11 years after co-writing Charter ’08, a manifesto calling for democratic reforms. At the end of June, his lawyer said that Liu was transferred from prison to hospital to treat his late-stage liver cancer. On Thursday, Beijing activist Hu Jia tweeted an open letter signed by over 40 close friends of the family asking to be allowed to visit Liu in the hospital on “humanitarian” grounds.
