China censors Nobel program

Associated Press

BEIJING

China repeated its claim Saturday that the world is meddling in its affairs after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in absentia to imprisoned democracy activist Liu Xiaobo. The ceremony was censored in China, which has seen a clampdown on dissidents and some news websites blocked in recent days.

“We oppose anyone making an issue of this matter, and oppose anyone interfering in China’s internal affairs in any way,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a statement posted early Saturday on the ministry’s website.

Liu won the prize for his work calling for sweeping changes to Beijing’s one-party communist political system. As the BBC and CNN switched to live coverage of Friday’s ceremony in Oslo, the channels went dark in China.

Several dozen journalists at Liu’s home were herded away by police to a cordoned-off area. Uniformed and plainclothes officers have guarded the entrance to the compound in central Beijing where Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, has lived under house arrest since the October announcement that her husband would receive the prize.