The head of the Nobel committee placed this year’s peace prize on an empty chair yesterday as Beijing raged against the award to dissident Liu Xiaobo, who is languishing in a Chinese prison cell.

As Communist authorities in Beijing fumed at the prize for the 54-year-old author and pro-China demonstrators gathered near the Oslo awards venue, last year’s laureate US President Barack Obama led calls for Liu to be set free.

And while a host of countries boycotted the ceremony after pressure from China, those who did attend heard a speech from Liu in which he described the quest for freedom as an unstoppable force.

“We regret that the laureate is not present here today,” Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said as he placed the peace prize diploma and gold medal on the chair in Oslo City Hall.

“Liu has only exercised his civil rights. He has not done anything wrong. He must be released.”

Mr Jagland was echoing calls by Mr Obama, who was last year’s winner of the prize, and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

“The values he espouses are universal, his struggle is peaceful, and he should be released as soon as possible,” the US president said in a statement.

Mr Liu – a former professor who was at the forefront of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests – was jailed in December 2009 for 11 years on subversion charges after co-authoring Charter 08, a manifesto that spread quickly on the internet calling for political reform and greater rights in China.

Amid threats from China of “consequences” for countries showing support for Mr Liu, around 20 countries stayed away from yesterday’s event, but dozens of ambassadors joined Norway’s king and queen for the speeches and ceremony in a flower-decked city hall.

Movie stars Denzel Washington and Anne Hathaway, who will host today’s Nobel concert in Oslo, as well as outgoing Speaker of the US House Nancy Pelosi were also among those who gathered to honour Mr Liu and listen to a speech he wrote ahead of his sentencing last year.