Liu Xiaobo Quotes

It is a crime now in my country to talk about the government's crimes.

There are men—now in power in this country—who do not respect dissent, who cannot cope with turmoil, and who believe that the people of America are ready to support repression so long as it is done with a quiet voice and a business suit.

What seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by a government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition

Censorship is definitely one of the main issues that you have to live with in China – period!

The one indisputable reality of dictatorship is that dissent, insult, and malevolent language do not go unpunished if it is allowed at all.

China is a heaven compared to North Korea.

My friends and family in Turkey could be arrested just for talking to me.

As long as a government can come and shoot you, you can't jump on the Internet to freedom.

Hundreds of political prisoners still suffer in Tibetan prisons. Freedom of speech is not allowed in any sense. It is illegal to possess a photo of the Dalai Lama.

I shall stand for freedom of thought and expression in a place where it has been trampled and penalized.

Intellectuals try to keep going. But their situation is very difficult. Those who have had the courage to voice their opposition have often paid a very high price.

Governments that block the aspirations of their people, that steal or are corrupt, that oppress and torture or that deny freedom of expression and human rights should bear in mind that they will find it increasingly hard to escape the judgement of their own people, or where warranted, the reach of international law.

All the big powers they've silenced me. So much for free speech and choice on this fundamental human right.

Madam, I have come from a country where people are hanged if they talk.

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

Being born in Cuba, a country where freedom of speech is non-existent, it's startling to observe how Venezuela, where I was happily raised, is fast becoming Cuba's mirror image: Dismantling of fundamental democratic rights deserved by its people and citizens of the world.

In Iran, there is no freedom of the press, no freedom of speech, no independent judiciary, no free elections. There is no freedom of religion - not even for Shiites, who are forced by Iran's theocracy to adhere to one narrow set of official rules.

Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately.

A state that suppresses all freedom of speech, and which by imposing the most terrible punishments, treats each and every attempt at criticism, however morally justified, and every suggestion for improvement as plotting to high treason, is a state that breaks an unwritten law.

Chinese citizens have never had the right to really express their opinions; in the constitution it says you can, but in the real world it is more dangerous. In the west people think it's a right they're born with. Here it's a right given by the government, and one that's not really practised.

I lived in a dictatorship in Brazil, and I was arrested three times. I felt in my flesh what it is to live under such a regime and experience deprivation of freedom.

Madame... I have come from a country where one can be hanged for what one says.

The policy of repression of ideas cannot work and has never worked.

Repression or oppression never yet succeeded in crushing the truth or redressing a wrong.

Our political life is closed, and our freedoms usurped, and our people are oppressed, and fearful… if you don’t say what the ruler wants, you’re exiled beyond the sun.