CHINESE NOBEL LAUREATE’S WIDOW MAKES APPEARANCE

BEIJING: The widow of late Chinese Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo has resurfaced in an online video, weeks after her friends raised concerns about her fate at the hands of the authorities.

Liu Xia was last seen in government-released images of her dissident husband’s sea burial on July 15, and China has been under international pressure to free her and let her travel abroad.

Liu Xia, 56, has been under de facto house arrest since her husband won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, despite having never been charged with a crime.

“I am recovering in a province outside of Beijing. I ask you to give me time to mourn,” said Liu in the minute-long video posted on Friday on YouTube, a website blocked in China.

“I will see you one day in top form. While Xiaobo was sick, he also looked at life and death with some distance, so I also have to readjust. I will be with you again when my situation generally improves,” she said.

The name of the film-maker, the place and date of filming, were not specified, but it would be unusual for the video to be released without the knowledge of the authorities. Plainclothes security agents guard Liu Xia’s Beijing apartment.

“It is certain that she was forced by the authorities to make this video,” Hu Jia, a Chinese dissident and friend of the couple, told AFP. “How can anyone who does not even enjoy freedom express her will freely?”

Ye Du, another dissident added: “She said that to protect her family, because the current situation is that even her family can not get in touch with her.”

Liu Xia’s lawyer, who has filed a complaint to the United Nations, has accused the Chinese government of her “enforced disappearance”.

But the local authorities have said she is a free citizen who was merely too grief-stricken by her husband’s death to be in touch with any friends or lawyers.