(CNN) -- Despite being allowed to tell her husband he won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, the wife of Liu Xiaobo was detained in her apartment in Beijing, China, according to a human rights group and her attorney.
Liu Xia has not been charged with a crime, but "appears to be under a de facto house arrest," said Beth Schwanke, legislative counsel for the U.S.-based group Freedom Now.
She was taken to see Liu Xiaobo in a prison several hundred miles northeast of Beijing, Schwanke said, and tell him of the honor.
Upon hearing he had received the peace prize, Schwanke said, Liu Xiaobo began to cry, and said, "This is for the martyrs of Tiananmen Square".
But upon return to Beijing, Liu Xia was not allowed to leave her apartment, Schwanke said. No one is allowed in, and her telephone is believed to be "destroyed," Schwanke said. Liu Xia has been able to post to some Twitter accounts, said Schwanke, who called the action "absolutely outrageous".
"Brothers, I have come back," said a Twitter post purportedly from Liu Xia. "I have been under house arrest since the 8th and don't know when I'll get to see everyone again. They broke my mobile phone so I can no longer make or receive calls".
"I saw Xiaobo, who learned about his winning the prize in prison on the evening of the 9th," she wrote. "We'll talk about the future later."
Since her husband was named as a 2010 Nobel laureate, Liu Xia has gained 1,000 new Twitter followers.
CNN
