The Chinese government is responsible for the “enforced disappearance” of Liu Xia, the widow of late Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, her US-based lawyer has said in a formal complaint filed with the UN. Liu Xia has been “held incommunicado in an unknown location by Chinese…
The Chinese government is responsible for the “enforced disappearance” of Liu Xia, the widow of late Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, her US-based lawyer has said in a formal complaint filed with the UN.
Liu Xia has been “held incommunicado in an unknown location by Chinese government authorities” since July 15, the day of her husband’s funeral, he lawyer, Jared Genser, said in statement to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances on Wednesday.
China faced a global backlash for its treatment of Liu Xiaobo when he died of liver cancer last month, making him the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate to die in custody since 1938 when German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky died while being held by the Nazis.
Liu Xia, 56, was followed around the clock by security officials, and has not been in touch with anyone since about a day before her husband’s death, Genser said.
“I demand that Chinese authorities immediately provide proof that Liu Xia is alive and allow her unhindered access to her family, friends, counsel, and the international community, ” he said in a separate statement emailed to AFP news agency.
Genser said international law defined “enforced disappearances” as situations where government officials are involved in depriving a person of her freedom against her will, and refuse to acknowledge that deprivation or conceal the disappeared person’s fate.
