Nobel winner dedicates Peace Prize to Tiananmen victims

Liu Xiaobo, the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize, has dedicated his award to the "lost souls" who died during the repression of the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement, an international rights group said Sunday.
The US-based group Human Rights in China (HRIC) quoted Liu Xiaobo's wife Liu Xia, and said she had been placed under house arrest by authorities in Beijing shortly after speaking to her husband.
Via her Twitter account, Liu Xia said she had been placed under house arrest at her Beijing home both before and after travelling to the prison in northeastern China where her husband is being held to inform him of his prize.
"Brothers, I have returned home. On the eighth (of October) they placed me under house arrest. I don't know when I will be able to see anyone," said the Sunday night Twitter posting.
"My mobile phone has been broken and I cannot call or receive calls. I saw Xiaobo and told him on the ninth at the prison that he won the prize. I will let you know more later. Everyone, please help me (re)tweet. Thanks," she said.
"This award is for the lost souls of June Fourth," the group quoted Liu Xiaobo as telling his wife, referring to the 1989 crackdown by the Chinese government on student protesters in Tiananmen Square.
"He said that it was due to their non-violent spirit in giving their lives for peace, freedom, and democracy," Liu Xia was quoted as saying, adding that her husband had been moved into tears as he finished speaking.
At least two dozen police, plainclothes officers and other security personnel were seen deployed Monday at the compound where Liu Xia lives, interrogating returning residents and preventing journalists from entering.
Norway said Monday that China has called off a meeting with the Norwegian fisheries minister just days after Beijing warned that the Nobel Peace Prize award to a jailed Chinese dissident would harm relations between the countries.
The move was announced a day after Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned democracy campaigner, was allowed a brief, tearful meeting with his wife, during which he dedicated the award to the "lost souls" of the 1989 military crackdown on student demonstrators.
Beijing had reacted angrily to Friday's announcement honouring Liu, calling him a criminal and warning Norway's government that relations would suffer, even though the Nobel committee is an independent organization.
Meanwhile, the spokeswoman for another US rights group said that her organization had also confirmed from a reliable source that Liu Xia had been detained.
"We have a source who is able to confirm that this is absolutely accurate," she told AFP.
Immediately after Liu the winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, his wife, authorities arranged to take Liu Xia to the prison in northeast China where he being detained. They said she went to the prison on Saturday and returned on Sunday.
But rights activists said that after the visit, Liu Xia's mobile phone was confiscated and that she was being held incommunicado, and that her phone had been taken away.
Meanwhile, European diplomats were prevented from visiting Liu's wife, who has been living under house arrest since Friday. Liu Xia has been told that if she wants to leave her home she must be escorted in a police car, the New York-based group Human Rights in China said.
Simon Sharpe, the first secretary of political affairs of the EU delegation in China, said he wanted to see Liu Xia at her home in Beijing to personally deliver a letter of congratulations on the peace award from the president of the European Commission.
Sharpe was accompanied by diplomats from about 10 embassies, including Switzerland, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Italy and Australia.