Imprisoned Chinese dissident chosen for human rights award

An imprisoned Chinese intellectual and dissident has been given a prestigious human rights award as part of this year’s Jeden Svet, or One World, documentary film festival. Liu Xiaobo was named the winner of this year’s Homo Homini award at the festival in Prague on Wednesday night. He is one of the founder signatories of Charter 08, a manifesto criticising the Chinese government for violations of human rights, freedom of speech and environmental destruction. Liu Xiaobo was detained in December and is still being held without trial. The award, given yearly by the People in Need charity, was accepted by a fellow dissident who said Chinese dissenters had found inspiration in the former Czech president Václav Havel and the Czechoslovak dissident movement.