The activist Yang Kuang attempted to visit Liu Xia and two cameramen wanted to film the encounter. A group of unidentified men accosted them and savagely beat them, then took the activist away in a police car. The woman is under house arrest since her husband won the Nobel Peace Prize (2010).

Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Two journalists from Hong Kong and a Chinese activist were badly beaten by unidentified men in Beijing outside the house of Liu Xia, wife of Nobel Peace Prize Winner Liu Xiaobo. The two - Tam Wing-man, a cameraman for TVB, and Wong Kim-fai, Now TV cameraman - wanted to film the attempt by activist Yang Kuang to visit the woman, who for more than two years has been sequestered under house arrest in her own home. The incident occurred on the night between March 7 and 8. The Hong Kong government says it is very concerned about what happened to its citizens, promising to investigate the affair.

A witness said that Yang was waiting for a taxi, when around 10 pm a dozen men attacked him. The man was then taken away in a police car. Immediately after the group turned on the two journalists. Tam was punched in the face and ended up on the ground, with five or six men who continued to beat him. Wang struggled to prevent his camera being taken from him, but was repeatedly beaten and the film was damaged in the melee. The group then started to insult the two, who were able, however, to escape.

Yang, known for his struggle for recognition of the Diaoyu Islands as Chinese territory, went missing for the whole day yesterday. In the afternoon, in a telephone conversation with the Post he spoke of the incident: the guards outside the house of Liu Xia had denied him permission to enter, and as he was leaving the group of men appeared and attacked him and the two journalists.

Liu Xia is under house arrest for being the wife of dissident writer Liu Xiaobo, Nobel Peace Prize Winner in 2010, sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2009 for "inciting subversion of state power" for his role in drafting Charter 08, which suggests China respect human rights and a democratic model to avoid the moral, ecological and social disasters that the country is suffering. When he was nominated for the Nobel prize, Liu had already been in prison for two years (since December 2008). On the allocation of the prize, Liu Xia was confined to her home. The woman can only go out once a week for shopping and once a month is accompanied to visit her husband. The house has no phone or internet. Last December, a group of journalists, from the Associated Press, succeeded in gaining access to the house and interviewing Liu Xia.

 

 

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