Beijing - The wife of jailed Chinese Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo slammed the government on Wednesday for keeping her under “illegal house arrest” after Washington and Brussels called for her release.
Liu Xia has been largely confined to her home since Friday when the Nobel Committee in Oslo awarded this year's prize to her dissident husband for advocating political reform and respect for human rights in one-party China.
“I strongly protest against the government for my illegal house arrest,” Liu Xia said on her Twitter account, calling her situation “very hard to take”.
The United States and the European Union have both urged Beijing to let her move freely again, on top of their calls for Liu Xiaobo to be released from prison after he was sentenced last December to 11 years on subversion charges.
China, meanwhile, has reacted with fury to the award, directing the brunt of its anger at Oslo by cancelling ministerial meetings and a Norwegian musical scheduled to be staged in the country next month.
Liu Xia said earlier that two Norwegian diplomats had attempted to visit her on Tuesday but were turned back at the entrance to her apartment block, in comments that were confirmed by the Norwegian embassy.
The diplomats were “outside the gates of her compound, (having come) to check on her condition”, embassy spokeswoman Tone Helene Aarvik told AFP, refusing to provide more details.
Liu Xia has said she hopes to travel to Norway to accept the award for her husband, who co-authored “Charter 08”, a bold call for political reform.
She told the Apple Daily that Liu would not plead guilty or strike a deal with Chinese authorities in order to leave the country to collect his award.
Liu Xia has been communicating via Twitter blocked in China and only available by proxy after her cellphone was cut off earlier in the week. A replacement phone has now also been cut off, she said in a tweet late on Tuesday.
“I had the phone for only a day and already it has been cut off by the hoodlums,” she said.
In her latest tweet, she added her confinement was taking a toll on her family.
“My elderly 77-year-old mother came over to see me today because I did not phone my family yesterday. (They're) concerned.”
One of her husband's lawyers said on Wednesday they also had no way of reaching her.
“We can't contact her at the moment. We are just waiting and hopefully we can find a way to get in touch soon,” attorney Shang Baojun told AFP.
Beijing police declined to comment on the situation when contacted by AFP.
Liu Xia has been under house arrest since the award was announced, except for a weekend trip under police escort to the prison in northeastern China where her husband is jailed.
The controls are apparently aimed at preventing her from talking to reporters as part of a huge campaign by the government to stifle news of the prize in China's media and on the Internet.
Other dissidents and attorneys have also been under close surveillance since the award was announced.
Li Fangping, a prominent rights lawyer, told AFP he was being followed, adding police had accompanied him right to his train carriage in Beijing as he boarded to go to China's east to work on an AIDS discrimination case.
According to activist group Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Zhang Zuhua, who drafted Charter 08 with Liu, has also been followed by police. Rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, meanwhile, has reportedly been held under soft detention at home.
Calls to Zhang went unanswered and a recorded message said Pu's number did not exist.
On Tuesday, Shang said Liu Xia wanted to ask a higher court for a retrial of her husband.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman refused to comment on her case when asked about it at a regular news briefing on Tuesday. - Sapa-AFP