Source: Sup China (7/10/17)
A grim vigil
Dissident Liu Xiaobo 刘晓波, out on medical parole from his 11-year prison sentence to have his terminal liver cancer treated, has been seen by two doctors from the U.S. and Germany:
- The foreign doctors contradicted Chinese government statements that Liu was too sick to travel.
- The Global Times published an edited video clip (with no context) of the German doctor praising the Chinese doctors who have been treating Liu. Also circulated by an unknown leaker: images and video of Liu’s wife at his bedside surrounded by a medical team, including the foreign doctors.
- The German Embassy posted a note of “deep concern…that certain authorities have evidently made audio and video surveillance recordings of the medical visit of Mr. Liu Xiaobo by a German doctor…against the expressed wishes of the German side.”
- German Chancellor Angela Merkel appealed to Beijing for “a signal of humanity” toward the dissident.
- Noted legal scholar and recent Sinica Podcast guest Jerome Cohen writes on the painful choice facing dissidents like Liu: “exile or extermination.”
—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief