BEIJING: The ashes of China's late Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo were buried at sea on Saturday, depriving supporters of a place to pay tribute to the pro-democracy dissident.
Officials showed a video in which his wife, Liu Xia, and relatives lowered a white round urn into the water off northeast coast city of Dalian, two days after the democracy advocate died of liver cancer aged 61 while in custody.
But his supporters said the authorities wanted to avoid giving him a burial ground where they could remember a writer whose calls for political reform angered the Communist regime and led to his arrest in 2008.
The authorities "fear that if someone who is as emblematic a symbol as Liu Xiaobo had a burial ground, it would become a place where his supporters would gather on his memorial day, the day he received the Nobel or any other such occasions to express their desire to chase after freedom," activist and family friend Ye Du told AFP.
Liu Xiaobo's older brother, Liu Xiaoguang, said at a news conference organised by the authorities that the government had followed the family's wishes.
He thanked the Communist Party for its "humanistic care" of his brother during his hospitalisation and death. He did not take any questions before being escorted out by two women.
Liu Xiaobo's body was cremated "in accordance with the will of his family members and local customs", said Zhang Qingyang, an official from the Shenyang city municipal office.
Liu's supporters said it was impossible to verify if it was really his wish to be buried at sea as the authorities have severely restricted access to his family. They also said Liu Xiaoguang did not agree with Liu Xiaobo's political leanings.
The sea burial took place after a private ceremony attend by family, including his wife, the poet Liu Xia, whose fate worries supporters hoping the government will cede to international pressure to release her and let her leave China.
Officials released photos showing Liu Xia with her brother, and two of Liu Xiaobo's brothers in front of the body, which was covered with white petals.
Zhang said "friends" also attended the ceremony.
But Amnesty International's China researcher Patrick Poon told AFP that he did not recognise any in the row of non-family members in the official photo and people close to the Liu couple identified at least one "state security police officer" among them.
Chinese dissident artist critic Ai Weiwei, who lives in Berlin tweeted a photo of the funeral and called the display "disgusting" and a "violation" of the deceased.
China's government faced a global backlash for denying Liu Xiaobo's wish to be treated abroad, and the United States and European Union have called on the government to free Liu Xia.
She has been under house arrest since 2010 and has not appeared in public since her husband was transferred from prison to a hospital in Shenyang after being diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer in late May.
Liu Xiaoguang said Liu Xia was in "weak condition" and experiencing such "great sorrow" and that she may need hospital treatment.
"As far as I know, Liu Xia is in a free condition," municipal official Zhang said, though friends cast doubt that she was released.
At his funeral, Mozart's Requiem was played and Liu Xia "fixed her eyes on him a long time, mumbling to say farewell," Zhang said, adding that she was "in very low spirits".
"It's best for her not to receive too much outside interference during this period after Liu Xiaobo has died," he said.
Jared Genser, a US lawyer who represented the Nobel Peace Prize winner, said she has been held "incommunicado" since her husband's death.
"The world needs to mobilise to rescue her - and fast," he said in a statement.
He said she has been held without charge for seven years.
"The most preposterous thing is that even during his cremation and funeral he still was not free. And now it's been passed on to his wife, who will continue to lead on that same freedom-less existence," Hu Jia, a Beijing-based activist and family friend, told AFP.
Liu was jailed in 2008 after co-writing a petition calling for democratic reforms. The veteran of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests was sentenced to 11 years in prison for "subversion" a year later.
The foreign ministry lashed out at the international criticism on Friday, saying it lodged official protests with the United States, Germany, France and the United Nations human rights office.
The ministry said giving Liu the Nobel Peace Prize was "blasphemy" while an editorial in the state-run newspaper the Global Times said "Chinese society opposes and despises him".