BEIJING (AFP) — Chinese police have extended the detention of leading dissident Liu Xiaobo, his lawyer said Tuesday, as rights groups urged Beijing to release the writer and make public the charges against him.
Liu, 53, was detained in December last year after he signed Charter 08, a widely circulated petition that called for greater democracy and the rule of law in China. Since his detention, no charges have been brought against him.
He is officially under "residential surveillance" but is not being held at his home. Rights groups and Liu's friends say they believe he is in police custody at a hotel in the suburbs of Beijing.
"The police visited Liu Xiaobo's wife and told her that he will remain under residential surveillance and the investigation would continue," lawyer Mo Shaoping told AFP.
"They said that new measures in his case would be taken, but they did not specify what these measures were.
"Basically, his entire residential surveillance has not conformed with laws and regulations."
The dissident was previously jailed for two years for his role in the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests.
The Chinese government on Tuesday was coy about the matter.
"China's relevant authorities handle the cases according to law," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters in response to a question on Liu.
Mo said he had filed a legal document with the police demanding a formal explanation for Liu's continued detention and an explanation on the new measures being introduced in his case.
"His residential surveillance should be carried out at his home -- his family should live with him and his lawyers should be able to freely visit. None of this has happened," Mo said.
Liu's case has drawn intense international criticism, with the European Union and the United States demanding his quick release.
Novelists such as Salman Rushdie and Italy's Umberto Eco, as well as Nobel laureates in literature including Irish poet Seamus Heaney have also campaigned for Liu's release.
Liu served three more years in a labour camp during the mid-1990s over his repeated calls on the government to reconsider its verdict that the Tiananmen protests were "counter-revolutionary".
Amnesty International said in a statement that police "have not yet made public any information concerning his alleged crimes, the charges against him and his current whereabouts."
The London-based watchdog said it "not only violates Chinese Criminal Procedure Law, but also is a serious violation of due process guarantees."
"Amnesty International urges China to make public Liu Xiaobo?s current situation and release him immediately."
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