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http://www.rfa.org
Activists Visit Liu Xia
Two Beijing activists said they had recently succeeded in visiting Liu Xia, the wife of jailed Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, under house arrest at her Beijing home in recent days, sparking concerns over possible retaliation from the authorities. Hu Jia, rights activist and close friend of the couple, said he had visited Liu on Friday in her apartment where she has been held under police guard since October 2010, when the Nobel committee first announced her husband's award. Hu's visit came after an international signature campaign to free both Lius gathered momentum in the wake of an open letter from more than 130 former Nobel laureates across all disciplines. "When I told her that Aung San Suu Kyi wished her and her husband well, and that 135 Nobel prize-winners had called for their release, Liu Xia was very happy," Hu said, referring to the Burmese opposition leader who herself was under house arrest for years before her release in November 2010. "She thanked everybody for their concern, but very soon she fell into despair again." "Personally, I think it's because she doesn't really believe that she or her husband will be freed." Hu has previously tried without success to visit Liu Xia at her apartment, and called her continued detention there "inhumane." More than 40,000 people worldwide have signed an online petition to free the Lius to date.
Hu said online activism had played an important part in drawing attention to Liu Xia's plight. "But what's even more important is for people to get out of their houses and offer some help to those whose human rights have been ignored," he said. But Hu said he and academic Xu Youyu had cut short their visit because of the obvious distress it caused Liu Xia. Video taken of a visit to Liu Xia's apartment showed her anxious and tearful, whispering into Xu's ear. "You can see [on the video] how happy Liu Xia was to see us, hugging Xu Youyu," Hu said. "We managed to stay three or four minutes in Liu Xia's home, but you could also see how frightened she is feeling." "She told him that her family would have to bear the aftermath of such visits, and that the authorities had continued to keep up the pressure on members of her family," he said. "That's why Xu Youyu decided we should leave quickly."
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