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More than 100 police blocked their way and prevented the activists from presenting their petition to Chinese officials. The police also rejected a birthday card the activists asked them to deliver to Liu, who turned 54 on Monday. The activists, who included lawmakers and lawyers, had gathered hundreds of signatures on their petition calling for Liu’s release.

Liu is a key author of Charter 08, a manifesto advocating democratic reforms that was published in December last year, signed initially by 303 Chinese scholars, lawyers and human rights activists. Later some 8,000 people added their signatures. Liu was arrested hours before Charter 08 was published online, and held without charge for a year until just before his case came to court last week.

The heavy sentence invited criticism from free-speech advocates at home and abroad, while mainland Chinese media kept silent.

Since Friday dozens of Charter 08 signers in Hong Kong and mainland China have attempted to surrender to police, offering to go to jail along with Liu.

On Dec. 27 more than 20 Hong Kong signatories of the charter attempted to surrender to mainland police in the neighboring city of Shenzhen. Some wore T-shirts and carried signs declaring their guilt as signatories of the banned document.

Mainland police intercepted the group – illegally – while they were still in Hong Kong and escorted them to the mainland side of the border. They detained several activists and two reporters for several hours before returning them to Hong Kong.

A similar incident occurred in Beijing outside the court where Liu’s sentence was announced on Dec. 25. A small crowd had gathered, holding yellow ribbons as a silent expression of support for Liu. Yang Licai, a mainland signer of Charter 08, approached a local policeman and announced he was giving himself up and was ready to share Liu’s punishment. He was taken to a police station for questioning and later released.

Diplomats from 15 embassies had requested to attend Liu’s trial on Dec. 23. They were initially refused but later allowed to enter the court, with the exception of the representative from the U.S. Embassy, who remained outside the building with a crowd of foreign reporters and “petitioners,” people hoping to attract attention to their own grievances.

Neither the so-called “witnesses” nor Liu’s wife were permitted to attend the trial. Liu’s two lawyers were initially prevented from entering but finally made their way inside.

Liu pled not guilty, claiming he was only exercising his right to free speech. His lawyers attempted to refute the charge of “inciting subversion,” asserting that it implied violent acts aimed at overthrowing state power. In addition to Charter 08, the prosecution based their case on six articles written by Liu, advocating political reforms in China.

According to Liu’s lawyer, the 11-year sentence was unusually stiff compared to similar previous cases. Many commentators see the sentence as a warning to other Chinese dissidents and rights activists who dare to criticize sensitive issues including China’s one-party system and the fact that the Chinese Communist Party controls the government and the military.

In fact, the same day that Liu was sentenced a court in Jiangsu province heard the appeal of Guo Quan, a former professor at Nanjing Normal University, who was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in October for subverting state power. The sentence was upheld at the appeal.

In 2007 Guo had published open letters to the Chinese leaders online, advising that a multi-party democratic system be adopted and the military be accountable to the government rather than the party. Guo founded the China New Democracy Party in December, 2007, which he claimed had 10 million members.

“He just wanted to test the political bottom line, seeing how far our national democratic progress had reached,” said Guo’s wife. She told overseas media that her husband’s party was in fact just an empty shell, with no members. She denied that he had broken any laws, as his political statements were published online under his real name, and the reforms he advocated were within the context of the Chinese Constitution.

Chinese netizens have described these dissidents as the Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela of China. In fact, the list of scholars and writers who have been jailed for advocating political reforms is much longer.