Liu Xia: China accused of 'disappearing' Liu Xiaobo's widow


  
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Liu Xia: China accused of 'disappearing' Liu Xiaobo's widow - B...
 Liu Xia, wife of Nobel winner Liu Xiaobo, has not been seen since her 
husband's funeral, her lawyer says.  |   |

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Image copyrightHANDOUT/AFPImage captionLiu Xiaobo and Liu Xia in 2002China's 
government has been condemned for the "enforced disappearance" of late Nobel 
laureate Liu Xiaobo's widow.Poet Liu Xia has not been in touch with anyone 
since about a day before her husband's death and has been "held incommunicado 
in an unknown location by the Chinese authorities", her US-based lawyer 
said.Jared Genser's comments came in a statement to the UN Working Group on 
Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.Mr Liu died of liver cancer last 
month.He was the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate to die in custody since 
German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who died in Nazi Germany in 1938.In a 
statement to the AFP news agency, Mr Genser said: "I demand that Chinese 
authorities immediately provide proof that Liu Xia is alive and allow her 
unhindered access to her family, friends, counsel, and the international 
community."He said her whereabouts had been unknown since Mr Liu's funeral on 
15 July.   
   - Love that survived a labour camp
   - The man China couldn't erase
The US, the EU, the UN high commissioner for human rights and Amnesty 
International have all called on Beijing to free Liu Xia, 56, who has been held 
under house arrest without charge since her husband won the Nobel prize in 
2010.Chinese authorities have insisted she is a free citizen, and that the 
grief induced by her husband's death has prevented her from getting in touch 
with friends or her lawyer.The committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize has 
said it is "deeply worried" about Liu Xia amid concern about her mental health. 
She is said to be suffering from depression after spending years under house 
arrest and heavy surveillance.The Norwegian Nobel Committee has called on the 
Chinese authorities to "lift all restrictions they have put upon her", adding: 
"If she wants to leave China, there is no justification for denying her the 
opportunity to do so."
Who was Liu Xiaobo?
Media captionLiu Xiaobo: China's most influential dissident   
   - A university professor turned tireless rights campaigner, Liu Xiaobo was 
branded a criminal by authorities and repeatedly jailed throughout his life
   - He is credited with saving lives in the Tiananmen Square student protests 
of June 1989, which ended in bloodshed when they were quashed by government 
troops. He and other activists negotiated the safe exit of several hundred 
demonstrators
   - The 11-year jail term he was serving was handed down in 2009 after he 
compiled, with other intellectuals, the Charter 08 manifesto which called for 
multi-party democracy
   - Mr Liu was found guilty of trying to overthrow the state
   - He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 for his "long and non-violent 
struggle for fundamental human rights in China" but was not permitted to travel 
to Norway to accept it

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