Wife detained after visiting Nobel winner

Beijing: The wife of this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, was allowed to meet with her husband on Sunday at the prison in northeastern China where he is serving an 11-year sentence, but she was then escorted back to Beijing and placed under house arrest, a human rights group said.

Prison officials had informed Mr. Liu that he won the award -- a decision vehemently condemned by the Chinese government -- the day before. In their hourlong visit, Mr. 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.

Hundreds died June 4, 1989, in Beijing when Chinese troops and tanks crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. Mr. Liu told his wife the award commemorates the nonviolent spirit in which those who died fought for peace, freedom and democracy, the group, Human Rights in China, said in a statement.

In Beijing, Ms. Liu's telephone and Internet communication has been cut off and state security officers are not allowing her to contact friends or the media, the statement said. Nor can she leave her house except in a police car, according to the group. Her brother's phone has also been "interfered with," the statement said.

Mr. 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.

Roughly 10,000 people signed the document before the government blocked its circulation on the Internet. Based on his pro-democracy writings, Mr. Liu was convicted last December of "inciting subversion of the state."

The Chinese government has described Mr. Liu's award as "blasphemy" and has imposed a blackout on news about it. Security in some areas has been tightened, and the road to Jinzhou prison in Liaoning Province, where Mr. Liu is held, has been blocked.

On Friday night, the police detained 20 bloggers, lawyers and academics who gathered for a celebratory banquet at a private room in a Beijing restaurant. By Sunday night, 10 guests had been released, according to a prominent activist, Zhang Zuhua, another of Charter '08's main authors. Three were given eight days in detention for disturbing the peace, and seven have been escorted out of Beijing, Mr. Zhang said.

The Chinese journalist Zan Aizong sent a Twitter message on Sunday saying that Chinese Internet media outlets had been ordered to post a Xinhua News Agency article that Russian media were attacking the Nobel Peace Prize as a "political tool of the West."

Analysts speculated that Chinese leaders would gather soon to define the Communist Party's position on the Nobel award. Until then, Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong researcher for Human Rights Watch, predicted that government agencies would tread carefully.

"The statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is almost word for word what they have said before," Mr. Bequelin said. "The treatment meted out to dissidents and lawyers is the regular one. Everyone is sitting tight and awaiting instructions from the top."

Several key Chinese officials are currently out of the country, including Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party's Central Committee.