Wife visits jailed Nobel winner

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.

The couple met yesterday afternoon, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy 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.

Immediately after he was proclaimed the winner on Friday, his wife Liu Xia told reporters that police were arranging to take her to Liu’s prison in northeast China, where she hoped to inform him of the award.

Since then her phone has been switched off and her whereabouts unknown.

Liu Xiaobo’s lawyers have also been unable to contact the Beijing-based Liu Xia since she disappeared into police custody Friday night.

“We have been unable to contact her, so we do not know where she is,” lawyer Ding Xikui said.

Liu is serving an 11-year jail sentence for subversion at Jinzhou prison in the province of Liaoning.