China accused of ‘enforced disappearance’ of Liu Xiaobo’s widow

This handout photo provided by the Shenyang Municipal Information Office shows late Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo's wife Liu Xia (centre) and his brother, Liu Xiaoguang (left), holding a portrait of Liu Xiaobo and receiving the ashes (right) in an urn at a funeral parlour in the Chinese city of Shenyang, Liaoning province on July 15, 2017. -AFP / Shenyang Municipal Information Office

BEIJING: China’s government is responsible for the “enforced disappearance” of late Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo’s widow, her US-based lawyer said on Wednesday in a formal complaint filed to the United Nations.

Beijing faced a global backlash for its treatment of Liu Xiaobo when he died of liver cancer last month, making him the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate to die in custody since German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky in 1938, who had been held by the Nazis.