Liu Xia, the widow of China's Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, left Beijing and arrived in Berlin on Tuesday after years of being detained without legal cause, European media reported, amid growing international attention to her plight.
She had been under house arrest by Chinese authorities since 2010, raising concern that she was suffering severe physical and psychological distress. U.N. human rights experts had called on China to allow her to seek treatment for her worsening health.
(Liu Xiaobo at Helsinki Airport en route to Berlin)
[Supplied photo]
The detention of Liu Xia may have even violated Chinese law. As President Xi Jinping's leadership has pledged to advance the rule of law in the country, it apparently decided to release her ahead of the first anniversary of her husband's death.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying confirmed Liu Xia's departure on Tuesday, telling a press briefing that the widow left for Germany of her own accord to receive treatment.
Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said last Thursday that the government has been "caring about the health condition" of the widow, indicating that it will release her anytime soon.
(Liu Xiaobo, right, and Liu Xia in 2017)
[Supplied photo]
Liu Xia's friend, meanwhile, told Kyodo News that she wanted to leave China together with her younger brother, but that was not permitted.
China is expected to use her brother as a "hostage" to make Liu Xia shy away from criticizing the Chinese government or the ruling Communist Party abroad, some foreign affairs experts say.
Liu Xia left Beijing a day after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang held a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, where they are believed to have exchanged views on her departure. Liu Xia has a close friend in Germany.
At a joint press conference with Merkel after their talks in Beijing in May, Li expressed willingness to hold dialogue with Germany about Liu Xia, with Germany calling for her release.
(Demonstrators in Hong Kong show support for Liu Xia during a democracy protest on July 1)
Liu Xiaobo, an outspoken critic of China's Communist Party and a democracy advocate, died last year in hospital of liver cancer while serving an 11-year prison sentence for his involvement in drafting Charter 08, a manifesto calling for an end to one-party rule in China and for peaceful democratic reform.
Liu Xia was put under house arrest without trial after her husband won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.
China claimed that Liu Xia's freedom of movement was not impeded. In a phone recording posted on the internet in May, Liu Xia was heard sobbing without talking for much of the time, apparently over her frustration with the processing of her application to leave China.
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"It is wonderful news that Liu Xia is finally free and that her persecution and illegal detention at the hands of the Chinese authorities has come to an end, Amnesty International's China researcher Patrick Poon said in a statement, while urging China to stop using Liu's relatives to silence her in the future.
According to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, Liu Xia was not allowed to bring with her out of the country her husband's manuscripts written in prison or the urn containing his ashes.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said Liu's departure was proof that China acted according to law, and "a sign of humanity."
