The wife of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo is under house arrest after a brief and emotional meeting with her husband, during which he dedicated his prize to the "lost souls" of the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in June 1989.
Mr Liu was jailed on Christmas Day last year for co-authoring "Charter 08", a manifesto for political reform. China is furious at the Nobel panel's decision, saying Mr Liu is a "criminal" and calling the award an obscene travesty that flies in the face of the spirit of the Nobel.
Ms Liu said that her communications had been cut and that both her and her brother's mobile phones have been interfered with, and she has been told she would have to be accompanied by police if she wanted to leave the building.
Uniformed guards at Ms Liu's apartment building have stopped European diplomats from entering the complex.
The censors have gone into overdrive to stop news of the award spreading. Messages on social networks are disappearing. Searches on the issue are blocked on most search engines by the system of controls known as the "Great Firewall of China".
The Independent
