On Friday, the EU joined the queue of international organizations, leaders and diplomats who’ve asked China to release the cancer diagnosed peace prize winner, Liu Xiaobo. But Norway remained silent.
EU Secretary of State, Federica Mogherini, stood behind a widely stated demand that the Nobel Peace Prize winner should be released from prison.
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‘In view of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Liu Xiaobo’s, failing health, and serious physical condition, the EU expects China to immediately grant a release on humanitarian grounds, and allow him to receive medical treatment where he wishes, in China or abroad’, it says in the clear statement by Mogherini.
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But on the election campaign in the summer heat iof Norway, Prime Minister Erna Solberg wouldn’t talk about Liu Xiaobo.
‘It’s the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that handles the matter,’ Solberg told Aftenposten newspaper during a children’s bike ride in Sørum on Saturday.
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However, Foreign Minister and party colleague, Børge Brende, also remained tight lipped on the EU’s declaration.
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The only Norwegian governmental department that has spoken publicly is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (UD), after Liu Xiaobo was hospitalized, in a statement from Communications Manager, Frode O. Andersen, to NTB news agencylast Monday, who said, ‘the news that Liu Xiaobo has been hospitalised with incurable cancer is sad. Our thoughts go to him and his family.
© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today
