Beijing - Chinese Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo has tearfully dedicated his award to victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, activists said, as his wife was held under house arrest on Monday.
“This award is for the lost souls of June Fourth,” the US-based group Human Rights in China quoted Liu Xiaobo as telling his wife Liu Xia, referring to the bloody 4 June 1989 crackdown on democracy protests at the vast Beijing square.
The 54-year-old writer, who was jailed for 11 years in December after authoring a bold petition calling for democratic reforms, was awarded the prize by the Oslo-based committee Friday, sparking a furious reaction from Beijing.
Leaders around the world including US President Barack Obama - last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner - lauded the 2010 winner and called on the Chinese government to release him immediately.
Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, also on Monday criticised China's irate response.
The Dalai Lama told Kyodo News during a stopover at Tokyo's Narita airport that the Chinese government does “not appreciate different opinions at all”.
He also said building an open and transparent society is “the only way to save all people of China” but that some “hardliners” inside the leadership were stuck in an “old way of thinking”.
Four UN human rights experts hailed Liu as a “courageous human rights defender” and urged China to release him immediately.
Via her Twitter account, Liu Xia said she had been placed under house arrest at her Beijing home both before and after travelling to the prison in north-eastern China where her husband is being held to inform him of his prize.
“Brothers, I have returned home. On the eighth (of October) they placed me under house arrest. I don't know when I will be able to see anyone,” said the Sunday night Twitter posting.
“My mobile phone has been broken and I cannot call or receive calls. I saw Xiaobo and told him on the ninth at the prison that he won the prize. I will let you know more later. Everyone, please help me (re)tweet. Thanks,” she said.
Liu Xiaobo's wife was taken to the prison under police guard, his lawyers said at the weekend.
At least two dozen police, plainclothes officers and other security personnel were seen at the compound where Liu Xia lives on Monday, interrogating returning residents and preventing journalists from entering.
Calls to her mobile phone were met with a recording saying it was out of service.
Liu Xiaobo is the first Chinese citizen to win the Peace Prize issued by the Oslo-based Nobel committee and China immediately lashed out at the award, calling it “blasphemy”, and labelling Liu a “criminal”.
China has warned Oslo the award would damage relations and on Monday cancelled a scheduled Wednesday meeting between a Norwegian fisheries minister and a Chinese vice minister.
China's censors have mounted an effort to prevent news of the award circulating on the Internet in China and searches on the subject remained blocked on Monday.
Liu, a former university professor, helped negotiate the safe exit from Tiananmen Square of thousands of student demonstrators before military tanks crushed the six weeks of peaceful protests in the heart of Beijing.
He has spent much of the intervening period in jail, under house arrest or other restrictions but has continued to seek the release of those jailed due to the protests.
He was last jailed following the publication of Charter 08, a manifesto calling for democracy and human rights that was signed by hundreds of Chinese activists and then thousands more after it was circulated online.
Liu dedicated his award to Tiananmen victims to honour their “non-violent spirit in giving their lives for peace, freedom, and democracy”, Liu Xia was quoted as saying by Human Rights in China.
She said her husband was moved to tears as he discussed the subject, according to the group.
During the one-hour meeting, Liu asked his wife to represent him at the Nobel awards ceremony in December, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement.
It was not immediately clear if Chinese authorities would allow her to attend.
Liu also told his wife he was suffering from a severe gastric ulcer while in prison, the statement said, citing a Monday telephone conversation between Liu Xia and the information centre.
After Liu was awarded the prize, authorities arranged to take Liu Xia to the prison in Liaoning province where he is serving his sentence, rights activists said. They said she went to the prison on Saturday and returned on Sunday.
Liu is one of three people to have been awarded the prize while being jailed by their own government. The other two are Myanmar's Aung Sang Suu Kyi in 1991 and German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky in 1935. - Sapa-AFP