BEIJING: China’s cancer-stricken Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo is in a critical condition, his hospital said on Monday, raising fears about his life after Western doctors said there was time to take him abroad.

The First Hospital of China Medical University in the north-eastern city of Shenyang said Liu’s tumour has grown, his liver is bleeding and he has kidney problems.

The hospital said in a statement on its website that it is preparing to take the 61-year-old democracy advocate into emergency care if necessary, adding that “Liu’s family members have been informed of the above circumstances”.

But human rights activists decried the hospital statement as a delay tactic to prevent Liu from getting his wish of going abroad, where they say he would be free to speak out.

The Germany embassy, meanwhile, voiced “deep concern” about the leak of a video showing a gaunt-looking Liu in his hospital bed while the German and American doctors talk to his wife, Liu Xia, and Chinese physicians.

Decrying a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality, the embassy said in a statement that “certain authorities have evidently made audio and video surveillance recordings” of the weekend visit “against the expressed wishes of the German side”.

The two foreign cancer specialists examined Liu on Saturday and said on Sunday he could still safely leave the country, contradicting their Chinese counterparts.

But US oncology expert Joseph Herman from the University of Texas’ MD Anderson Cancer Center and German doctor Markus Buchler of Heidelberg University warned in a statement that “the medical evacuation would have to take place as quickly as possible”.

Human rights activists said the hospital’s latest statement shows the government is dragging its feet. “As Liu Xiaobo is in late-stage cancer, his conditions can go worse any time,” said Amnesty International’s China researcher Patrick Poon.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2017