Activists call for visitors to Chinese dissident’s wife

CHINESE activists are urging people to visit dissident Liu ­Xiaobo’s wife to highlight that she has been under house arrest since her husband won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.

Activist Hu Jiay yesterday said Chinese citizens, human rights workers and foreign politicians should visit Liu Xia at her guarded Beijing flat to help her regain freedom, a call reminiscent of the campaign to visit blind activist Chen Guangcheng in Shandong before his escape from house arrest last spring.

“This should not be permitted to happen in a civilised society,” Mr Hu said.

Liu Xia’s husband is four years into an 11-year jail term for writing a manifesto calling for democracy. China strongly objected to his being named the peace prize laureate in 2010.