Republican Representative Frank Wolf said China was joining the infamous World War II regime of Adolf Hitler -- as well as the Soviet Union and Myanmar -- by barring the peace laureate from attending Friday's ceremony in Norway.

"China should be ashamed and China should be embarrassed to be in the company of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Burma," Wolf said at a press conference with other lawmakers to call for Liu's immediate release.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in October to Liu, who was jailed in December 2009 for 11 years on subversion charges after co-authoring "Charter 08," a manifesto calling for democratic reform in one-party China.

Wolf hailed Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's plans to attend the ceremony, saying her presence would "send a powerful message" that Washington stands with Chinese advocates of democratic reforms and broader human rights.

The US House of Representatives was expected to vote Tuesday on a symbolic resolution, crafted by Republican Representative Chris Smith, honoring Liu and urging Beijing to free him.

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Beijing must listen to critics of its "warped political system" and demanded Liu and his wife be set free "at once."

She noted that Nazi Germany blocked the 1935 laureate, Carl von Ossietzky, from attending his award ceremony, while Moscow barred Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov in 1975, and Myanmar's military rulers stopped democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi from attending hers in 1991.

"Beijing now joins the ranks of the infamous Nazi regime and the repressive Burmese junta in locking up a Nobel Peace prize winner," she said, demanding "rulers of Beijing, have you no shame?"

Shortly after the press conference, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg called human rights in China "an important subject matter" in ties between the two countries and called for Liu's release.

"We hope that China will take positive steps on human rights including the release of Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo," Steinberg stressed in an address on China at the Center for American Progress think tank in Washington.

The congressional resolution, to be taken up Tuesday, also urges US President Barack Obama to keep working for Liu's release from prison and for his wife Liu Xia to be freed from house arrest.

It also "calls on the government of China to cease censoring media and Internet reporting of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo and to cease its campaign of defamation against Liu Xiaobo."

China has accused Norway, the Nobel committee's home, of undermining relations and encouraging a "criminal." China has also pressured nations not to attend the Nobel ceremony.

US lawmakers were joined at the press conference by major human rights advocacy groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders as well as Chinese dissident Harry Wu.

The group pushed Obama, who won the peace prize last year, to press Chinese President Hu Jintao on political and religious rights as well as Beijing's "one child" policy that US critics charge is backed by forced abortions.

When Hu makes a state visit to Washington in January, "we need to greet him with courtesy, civility, but with a writ of human rights abuses, a catalog of human rights abuses that they can no longer ignore," said Smith.

"What Mr Liu needs most is not the ornate medal, or even the cash prize that goes with the award, but our ongoing commitment to stand with him and the goals and aspirations he represents," said Democratic Representative Jim McGovern.

Smith, a long-time critic of China who planned to attend Friday's events in Oslo, said the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations must bring "fresh light and scrutiny" to "commonplace" Chinese repression.

Democratic Representative David Wu, the first Chinese-American elected to the US Congress, accused the government in Beijing of a "failure of pride and patriotism" and urged leaders there to "be on the right side of history."

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News