China Organizing Boycott Of Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony

In addition to refusing to allow top dissident Liu Xiabao to attend the ceremony to accept his Nobel Peace Prize this week, China is also urging other nations not to attend:

The number of governments which have decided not to represented when the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to the imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo this week has more than tripled to 19, the Norwegian prize committee said on Tuesday, an apparent reflection of the strong pressure exerted by Beijing to boycott the event.

In a statement on its Web site, the peace prize committee said that as of Monday, 44 embassies in Oslo, the Norwegian capital, had signaled their intention to send a representative to the ceremony on Friday. But the number who “for various reasons declined our invitations” had risen to 19 from 6 three weeks ago.

Those countries are China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Serbia, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the Philippines, Egypt, Sudan, Ukraine, Cuba and Morocco.

What a lovely collection of rogues and cowards.

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Sam says:

    Why is the Philippines skipping out?