Liu Xia Appears in New Video

As reported by the New York Times and other sources, a video surfaced last week showing photographer and poet Liu Xia, the widow of Liu Xiaobo, speaking for the first time since her husband’s death. See “Missing Widow of China’s Nobel Laureate, Liu Xiaobo, Surfaces in Video” by Chris Buckley, NYT, August 19, 2017.

Buckley writes,

[Liu Xia] has resurfaced for the first time since [Liu Xiaobo’s] death in a brief online video pleading for privacy and time to recover from her grief.

But many supporters of Liu Xia … said the video of just over one minute appeared to have been made by Chinese security authorities who have kept Ms. Liu under secretive guard, cut off from family and friends.

In the video, which appeared on YouTube on Friday, Ms. Liu said in a weak, rasping, halting voice that she was away from Beijing and still recovering from the death of her husband, who was 61. Mr. Liu’s liver cancer was disclosed only after it was too late for real hope of a cure.

“Please give me time to grieve, give me time to recover psychologically,” Ms. Liu said in what appeared to be the living room of a home in a lush part of China. “Xiaobo treated life and death with equanimity, and I also need to straighten myself out. I’ll be with you again after I’ve made an overall improvement.”

No one has claimed credit for the video.

But it first appeared on a YouTube channel that has issued only videos echoing Chinese government views.