Political Quotes

“Mr. President, in China, as I speak, there is a man in a small prison cell lit by one single lightbulb. He has been in prison for 11 years in the country of China. On Friday of this week, in Oslo, Norway, he will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. His name is Liu Xiaobo. His wife has written me asking me to come to the Nobel Peace Prize presentation in Oslo, Norway, this Friday in honor of her husband. I am not able to go to Oslo this Friday. The Senate is going to be in session the rest of the week. I regret I can't be in Oslo for the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize, but I did want to take a moment to remember what is happening this week. This is Liu Xiaobo. He is in prison in China. He has been in prison for 11 years. That is his sentence. I wish to describe why the Chinese have put Liu Xiaobo in prison. It is not the first time he has been in prison, as a matter of fact. Let me tell my colleagues just a little about Liu Xiaobo. He was born in 1955, grew up in an industrial city in China's northeast. As a young man, he wanted to study literature, so he went to Beijing and he became a Ph.D. in comparative literature. He became a professor and dedicated his days to teaching and to writing. By 1989, he had the good fortune to be allowed to travel abroad as a visiting scholar. He was at Columbia University in New York, in the USA, when the demonstrations began to grow in Tiananmen Square.…”