Liu Xiaobo

Independent activity Marxism–Leninism 1955–2017 ○ Died of illness in custody

Literary critic who negotiated withdrawal, Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2010

Literary critic and human rights activist. Returning from abroad in 1989, he joined the protests, fasted with Hou Dejian and others and advocated nonviolence and withdrawal. He helped negotiate the remaining students’ exit from the square before dawn on 4 June. He continued democratic activism through imprisonment and reeducation through labour, and helped draft Charter 08 in 2008. Sentenced to eleven years in prison, he received the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize while detained and died of cancer in 2017.