China has condemned the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to dissident Liu Xiabao as ‘an obscenity’. Over the last few days, China had warned the Committee not to make a choice of this kind, either in regard to Liu or in regard to other dissidents or those in favour of the introduction of democracy to China. Liu Xiaobo was condemned to 11 years in prison on 25th December for “incitement to subvert the power of the state”. His lawyers only had 20 minutes in which to make their summation, during a trial that lasted under three hours. .