The wife of the Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo, who won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, is being detained in her Beijing home, the spokeswoman for a US based rights group said Sunday. "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, speaking of the dissident's wife, Liu Xia.
Schwanke told AFP that after it was announced Friday that her husband had been awarded the Nobel prize, Liu's phone was taken away and she was informed that she was detained.
The detention took place after she was taken to see her husband to inform him that he had won the Nobel. "They told her she would be taken to the prison where he husband is being held," said Schwanke. "After she returned to Beijing they told her that she would not be allowed to leave her apartment," Schwanke said.
Liu, the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize, is a 54-year-old writer imprisoned since December after authoring Charter 08, a manifesto signed by thousands seeking greater rights in the communist nation.