Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo dies

Nobel Prize-winning Liu Xiaobo has died while fighting liver cancer in a northeast China hospital, still captive of the authoritarian government he battled for much of his life.

The renegade Chinese intellectual was serving an 11-year prison term for "inciting subversion of state power" by assisting in the writing of a petition calling for political reform. He had kept vigil on Tiananmen Square in 1989 to protect protesters from encroaching soldiers.

Officially, Liu gained medical parole but he was under guard in a hospital and still a captive, the New York Times reports.

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The 61-year-old had recently been moved from prison to a hospital in the northeast city of Shenyang. The bureau of justice of Shenyang announced his death on their website today, Reuters reports.

While imprisoned, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China".

Liu "will remain a powerful symbol for all who fight for freedom, democracy and a better world", the Nobel Peace Prize committee leader Berit Reiss-Andersen said today.