Nobel winner likens censorship to airport security

[NewsCaster]

Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP - Getty ImagesThe 2012 Nobel Literature Prize laureate, Mo Yan of China, poses for photographers during a press conference of the 2012 Nobel Literature Prize laureate in Stockholm.By Ed Flanagan, NBC NewsBEIJING – When the Swedish Academy selected Chinese writer, Mo Yan, as this year’s recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the move was hailed by the state media, only two years after blasting the same committee for awarding the peace prize to fellow countryman and outspoken dissident Liu Xiaobo.

However, outside of the country,  some critics pointedly questioning Mo’s Communist Party membership, his unwillingness to speak up for freedom of speech on the mainland and his apparent reluctance to speak out for his fellow laureate. “Giving the award to a writer like this is an insult to humanity and to literature,” declared noted Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei, at the time.

NBCNews