PHL, 18 other states to skip Nobel rites for Chinese dissident

The Philippines counts among the 19 countries that will be skipping the ceremony in Oslo, Norway on Friday awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese dissident. According to the Nobel Committee, 44 embassies have indicated that they will be represented at the ceremony while 19 have declined their invitations “for various reasons." The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila confirmed this, but declined to state the reason for not sending a representative to the gala. “We will not attend the event," said Foreign Affairs spokesman Eduardo Malaya. He did not say why. The 19 countries that are not attending the Nobel prize awarding event are China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Serbia, Iraq , Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Egypt, Sudan, Ukraine, Cuba and Morocco. “For the sake of comparison, in 2008 when Martti Ahtisaari received the Nobel Peace Prize 10 embassies were for various reasons not represented at the ceremony," the Nobel Committee said in a statement on its website. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010 to Liu for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China. “The Committee has long believed that there is a close connection between human rights and peace. Such rights are a prerequisite for the fraternity between nations of which Alfred Nobel wrote in his will," it said. Liu took part in the Tiananmen protests in 1989 and was a leading author behind Charter 08, the manifesto of such rights in China which was published on December 10, 2008—the 60th anniversary of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The following year, Liu was sentenced to 11 years in prison and two years’ deprivation of political rights for “inciting subversion of state power." Liu has consistently maintained that the sentence violates both international human rights charters and China’s own constitution.—DM/JV, GMANews.TV