During a hunger strike days before the Chinese army crushed the Tiananmen Square prodemocracy movement on June 4, 1989, the man who would become China's best known dissident, Liu Xiaobo, declared: "We have no enemies."

When being tried in 2009 on charges of inciting subversion of state power for helping write Charter 08 — a prodemocracy manifesto calling for an end to one-party rule — Liu reaffirmed: "I have no enemies and no hatred."

He was sentenced to 11 years in prison that same year, drawing protests from the United States, many European governments and rights groups, which condemned the stiff sentence and called for his early release.