Nobel laureate Liu's lawyer 'stopped at China airport'
Mo Shaoping, a Chinese lawyer whose firm represents jailed Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, pictured in 2008 Mo Shaoping said many people have been stopped from leaving the country recently
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A Chinese lawyer who represents jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo says he has been prevented from leaving the country.
Mo Shaoping says he was stopped by border police at Beijing airport, and told that if he was allowed to leave it could "threaten state security".
Mr Mo says he was on his way to a lawyers' conference in London.
But he says authorities suspected he could have been planning to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Liu.
China has reacted with fury to the awarding of the Nobel prize to Liu, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison last December on subversion charges, after co-authoring a petition calling for political reform.
The lawyer told AFP news agency that immigration officials had stopped him at Beijing's airport as he prepared to board a flight.
"They said it was because I may do something to harm national interests," he said, adding that the officials did not explicitly cite the award as the reason he was denied permission to travel.
"But it is definitely because of that," he said.
He said "there have been many others" prevented from leaving the country recently, apparently out of fear that one of them would seek to accept the award on Liu's behalf at the 10 December ceremony in Norway.
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Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:40 am