FILE PHOTO: A protester holds a candle next to a portrait of Chinese Nobel rights activist Liu Xiaobo demanding his release, during Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting, ahead of 20th anniversary of the city's handover from British to Chinese rule, in Hong Kong, China June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

HAMBURG (Reuters) - A German cancer specialist has been invited to examine Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo and is currently on site at the hospital in Shenyang that is treating the Nobel Peace laureate, a source at Germany’s foreign ministry said on Friday.

“We hear that his condition has deteriorated rapidly. We are very concerned about that,” the source said.

Liu, 61, was jailed for 11 years in 2009 for “inciting subversion of state power” after he helped write a petition known as “Charter 08” calling for sweeping political reforms.

He was recently moved from jail to a hospital in China’s northeastern city of Shenyang to be treated for late-stage liver cancer.