Nobel Peace Prize awarded in absense of laureate first time in history

Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded in Oslo. This year it went to the Chinese dissident  Liu Siayabo, sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment at his home country. According to Gazeta.ru, this was the first time when the laureate could not attend the awarding ceremony. The dissident's wife also couldn't get to the ceremony as she was then in China under the home arrest. Thus, there were two empty seats in the awarding hall.