China puts 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo's wife under house arrest

Beijing, Oct 11 (ANI): The wife of Liu Xiaobo, the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, has reportedly been put under house arrest in Beijing following her meeting with her husband on Sunday at the prison in north-eastern China where he is serving an 11-year sentence, according to a human rights group.

The New York Times quoted the human rights group's statement, as saying that Liu's wife, Liu Xia's telephone and Internet communication has been cut off and added that she has been barred from making contacts with her friends and the media. She is not allowed to move out of her house except in a police car.

Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 8, but was informed about the decision only a day before the couple met.

Liu's wife, Liu Xia, said her husband had told her, "This is for the lost souls of June 4th," and then was moved to tears.

The statement said that Liu told his wife that the award commemorates the non-violent spirit of those who died fought for peace, freedom and democracy that time on June 4, 1989.

Hundreds of people died on June 4, 1989, when Chinese troops and tanks crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Liu, who was active in the 1989 movement, spent the next two decades pressing for political reform in China. A 54-year-old former literature professor, he was one of the main authors of Charter '08, a pro-democracy manifesto that calls for expanded liberties and the end to single-party rule in China.

Earlier, China had condemned the Nobel Prize committee and described the award as "blasphemy". It also imposed a blackout on news about it. Security in some areas has been tightened, and the road to Jinzhou prison in Liaoning Province, where Liu is held, has been blocked, the paper said.

Liu was convicted last December of "inciting subversion of the state."

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and US President Barack Obama urged China to release Liu after he won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. (ANI)