UN rights chief says China must allow Liu Xia to move freely

NEW YORK — The UN human rights chief says he intends to keep pressuring China to allow the wife of the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo to move freely and leave the country if she wants to go elsewhere.

Zeid Ra’ad al-hussein told a group of reporters Thursday that he intends to meet with Chinese officials when he returns to work in Geneva to try to ensure that Liu Xia has freedom of movement.

Liu died of liver cancer on July 27 while serving an 11year sentence on charges of incitement to subvert government power. The current whereabouts of Liu Xia, an accomplished poet, are unknown.

She was never charged, but has been kept guarded and largely isolated in the apartment they shared in Beijing for more than seven years.