Chinese security agents launched a wide-ranging clampdown on dissidents today, hours before the award Nobel Peace Prize award to imprisoned democracy activist Liu Xiaobo.

China is awarding its own peace prize to counter the Nobel that recognised imprisoned democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo.

China and 18 other countries will boycott this week's Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in protest at the award going to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

Only one of about 140 Chinese activists invited by the wife of jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo has confirmed he will attend the prize ceremony in Oslo, according to an organiser of the guest list.

THE wife of jailed Chinese Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo slammed the government on Wednesday for keeping her under “illegal house arrest” after the US and EU called for her release.

Prison authorities in China have started giving Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo better food, the dissident's wife said today, while she herself faces restrictions on whom she can meet and must be accompanied by a police escort whenever she leaves her home.

China today blocked European diplomats from meeting the wife of the jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner and cut off her phone in anger over the award.

An imprisoned Chinese dissident who won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize was allowed to meet with his wife and told her in tears that he was dedicating the award to victims of a 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, his wife and a close friend said.

THE wife of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo met her jailed husband yesterday, activists said, apparently to inform him he had won the prestigious award amid a media blackout in China.

IMPRISONED Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize yesterday for using non-violence to demand fundamental human rights in his homeland.

The brother-in-law of a Chinese dissident who has called for sweeping political reforms and an end to Communist Party dominance said a verdict would be handed down on Friday.