Chinese activist dedicates Nobel prize to Tianamen victims

The US-based group Human Rights in China (HRIC) quoted Liu Xiaobo's wife Liu Xia, and said she had been placed under house arrest by authorities in Beijing shortly after speaking to her husband.

"This award is for the lost souls of June Fourth," the group quoted Liu Xiaobo as telling his wife, referring to the 1989 crackdown by the Chinese government on student protesters.

"He said that it was due to their non-violent spirit in giving their lives for peace, freedom, and democracy," Liu Xia was quoted as saying yesterday, adding that her husband had been moved to tears as he finished speaking.

HRIC also said in their press release that Liu Xia has been detained in her Beijing home.
The group said that it had learned of Liu Xia's arrest through its contacts and said in its statement that it "strongly urges the international community to press the Chinese authorities to immediately release Liu Xia from house arrest, free Liu Xiaobo, and free all prisoners of conscience incarcerated as a result of exercising their right of freedom of expression."

Meanwhile, the spokeswoman for another US rights group said yesterday that her organisation had also confirmed from a reliable source that Liu Xia had been detained.
"She is currently under de facto house arrest back in her apartment in Beijing," said Beth Schwanke, legislative counsel for the US-based group Freedom Now.

"We have a source who is able to confirm that this is absolutely accurate," she told AFP.
Immediately after Liu the winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, his wife, authorities arranged to take Liu Xia to the prison in northeast China where he being detained. They said she went to the prison on Saturday and returned on Sunday.

But rights activists said that after the visit, Liu Xia's mobile phone was confiscated and that she was being held incommunicado, and that her phone had been taken away.

"After she returned to Beijing they told her that she would not be allowed to leave her apartment," said Schwanke.

"She was put under de facto house arrest," she said. Liu Xiaobo is serving an 11-year jail sentence for subversion at Jinzhou prison in northeast China's Liaoning province.