Chinese soldier's son who cut short life in academia to fight for reform

THE son of a soldier, Liu Xiaobo joined China's first wave of university students in the mid-1970s after the chaotic decade of the Cultural Revolution.

He cut short a visiting scholar stint at Columbia University in the US months later to join the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989. He and three other older activists famously persuaded students to peacefully leave the Square hours before the deadly 4 June crackdown.

The former literature professor went to prison after the confrontation and was released in early 1991 because he had repented and "performed major meritorious services", state media said at the time, without elaborating.

Still, five years later Mr Liu was sent to a re-education camp for three years for co-writing an open letter that demanded the impeachment of then-president Jiang Zemin.

The Charter 08 document that Mr Liu co-authored was an intentional echo of Charter 77, the famous call for human rights in then-Czechoslovakia that led to the 1989 Velvet Revolution that swept away Communist rule.

"The democratisation of Chinese politics can be put off no longer," Charter 08 states.