liu xiaobo's was sent to prison for 11 years after he helped write the political manifesto 2008 called charter 08. liu xia begged her husband to not participate in writing the document. at first, he did as she asked. but later, he spent much of his time writing and re-writing the document which took three years. he later got more than 300 prominent workers, chinese communist party members, and intellectuals, to sign the charter. 10,000 people added their names to a charter support list on the internet.