Liu Xiaobo: dissident's friends angry after hastily arranged sea burial: VIDEO

Liu Xiaobo: dissident's friends angry after hastily arranged sea burial

Rights activists concerned for Nobel laureate’s wife, Liu Xia, who attended cremation but has not been heard from for days 

Funeral ceremony for Liu Xiaobo, who died on Thursday of liver cancer at 61. His wife, Liu Xia, is on the right, 

wearing sunglasses. Photograph: Shenyang government/Supplied

Tom Phillips in Beijing

Saturday 15 July 2017 12.38 BST First published on Saturday 15 July 2017 02.55 BST

Friends of the late Nobel laureate, Liu Xiaobo, have voiced rage and disgust after the announcement that the dissident’s ashes had been cast into the ocean off north-eastern China in a hastily arranged sea burial they believe was designed to deny supporters a place of pilgrimage.

“This is too evil, too evil,” the exiled author Liao Yiwu, a close friend, told the Guardian after the details of Liu’s cremation and sea burial emerged on Saturday afternoon. “They are a bunch of gangsters.”

Mo Zhixu, another friend and activist, said: “The regime must be insane. They have done the worst thing you could have possibly imagined.”

The artist Ai Weiwei said he suspected authorities had decided to bury Liu at sea to deny his supporters “a physical memorial site” at which to pay homage to him and his ideas. “It is a play,” he said. “Sad but real.”

Liu died on Thursday, aged 61, becoming the first Nobel peace prize winner to die in custody since the 1935 recipient, German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, died under surveillance after years confined to Nazi concentration camps. His death sparked a wave of condemnation, which China rejected as meddling in its “domestic affairs”. 

Speaking at a press briefing in the city of Shenyang, where Liu died, on Saturday afternoon a government spokesman claimed the activist’s relatives had – of their own volition – taken his ashes out to sea after he was cremated early that morning.

The official said family members had walked slowly on to the deck of the funeral company’s ship carrying white and yellow chrysanthemums and a biodegradable container which was lowered into the waters below. “They placed the urn into the vast ocean,” the spokesperson told reporters, without taking questions.

The government’s claim that Liu’s ashes had been scattered into the sea at the family’s own request was supported by one of the Nobel laureate’s brothers, Liu Xiaoguang, who appeared at the same press briefing.

“On behalf of my family I would like to express great thanks to the Chinese Communist party and also the government because everything they have done for our family shows a high level of humanity and personal care to us,” the 68-year-old said.

He claimed the family had taken the decision to scatter Liu’s ashes into the sea partly for environmental reasons. 

Friends and activists said they believed Liu Xiaoguang been coerced into addressing the media against his will.

Funeral ceremony for Liu Xiaobo. Photograph: Shenyang government

Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International’s East Asia director, described the briefing as “a crude, cruel and callous political show” designed to mask Beijing’s responsibility for the death of Liu, who was diagnosed with late-stage cancer in May while serving an 11-year sentence for his role in a pro-democracy manifesto.

Sophie Richardson, Human Rights Watch’s China director, said: “It’s very hard to imagine in the current circumstances that Liu’s brother had any option to decline the authorities’ request to do this.”

Absent from the press briefing was Liu Xiaobo’s wife, the poet Liu Xia. “Ms Liu Xia is not able to come here in person due to her very weak condition,” Liu Xiaoguang said.

Earlier, China had released propaganda photographs showing Liu Xia attending her husband’s funeral and cremation on Saturday morning.

The images showed mourners, including Liu Xia, gathered beside a casket that was ringed by pots of white chrysanthemums. Above what appeared to be the dead activist’s corpse a black banner read: “A farewell ceremony for Mr Liu Xiaobo”. Officials said Mozart’s Requiem was played.

Liu Xia was also pictured, wearing black clothes and sunglasses, in photographs and video clips of the sea burial that were distributed by Chinese authorities.

Friends say they are increasingly concerned about the wellbeing of Liu Xia, who has lived under heavy surveillance and in almost total isolation since her husband won the Nobel prize in 2010. Before Liu’s death they had been attempting to leave China.

“We have lost touch with her now for three full days,” Jared Genser, a US human rights lawyer who represents her and her late husband, told the Guardian. “I’m incredibly concerned about her health and welfare.”

China News Service, a Communist party-controlled news agency, claimed on Friday that Liu Xia was “a free woman” who was deliberately shunning her friends and relatives because she wanted to grieve in peace.

On Saturday, a government spokesperson, Zhang Qingyang, repeated those claims. “Liu Xia is free,” he said, according to Reuters, without revealing her whereabouts. “I believe the relevant departments will protect Liu Xia’s rights according to the law,” Zhang added. 

According to AFP, Zhang claimed Liu Xia was “emotionally grieving” and did not want “too much outside interference”. 

Genser rejected claims that Liu Xia was free as “a sick joke”.

“It leaves me incredulous to think that the Chinese government would think that anybody would believe such a claim: that she is grieving and does not want to be disturbed. I mean, come on. That is just totally ridiculous.” 

Genser added: “We all know the truth. The truth is clear as day. She has been under house arrest without charge or trial for seven years and even after her husband is dead that appears not to be good enough for the Chinese government.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/15/liu-xiaobo-cremated-in-shenyang-amid-growing-fears-for-safety-of-his-wife

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