OSLO, Norway — The Nobel Peace Prize may not be handed out this year because China is not likely to let anyone from imprisoned award-winner Liu Xiaobo’s family attend the ceremony, a Nobel official said, calling China’s diplomatic pressure this year unprecedented.
Outraged by the award, Beijing has reportedly clamped down on Liu’s relatives and pressured other countries not to send representatives to the Dec. 10 award ceremony in Oslo.
Ambassadors from Russia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Iraq have all declined invitations to the ceremony but didn’t specify the reasons, Geir Lundestad, secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee told The Associated Press on Thursday.
“For an embassy to actively try to persuade other embassies to not participate in the ceremony is something new,” Lundestad said.
The prestigious 10 million kronor (US$1.4 million) award can only be collected by the laureate or close family members.
Liu, a Chinese dissident, is serving an 11-year sentence for subversion after co-authoring an appeal calling for reforms to China’s one-party political system. His wife, Liu Xia, has been under house arrest and subject to police escort since the award was announced last month.
Lundestad said no other relatives have announced plans to come to Oslo for the ceremony.
“The way it looks now, it is not likely that someone from his close family will attend,” Lundestad said.
“Then we will not give out the medal and the diploma during the ceremony.”
If that happens, it will be the first time since 1936, when there was no one present to accept the medal and diploma for German journalist Carl von Ossietzky, who was seriously ill and not allowed to leave Nazi Germany.
However, a representative of Ossietzky received the prize money only, Lundestad said.
The Nobel committee has skipped selecting a winner altogether in some years, including during the Second World War.
Lundestad said the committee has not lost hope that someone from Liu’s family can attend the ceremony.
“If someone shows up at the last minute, it will not be a problem to change plans,” he said.