2015, a bilingual collection of Liu Xia's poetry, Empty Chairs, was published by Graywolf Press. The poems in the collection span from 1983 to 2013. After her husband's death on 13 July 2017, no one knew her whereabouts for six months, although the Chinese government openly stated that she was "free". On 2 September 2017, she was reported to have returned to her Beijing home. Frank Lu Siqing, the founder of the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, successfully spoke to Liu Xia on the phone for half an hour after calling her at her home in Beijing, South China Morning Post reports. House arrest after death of Liu Xiaobo Although Liu Xia is not generally seen as a social activist in her own right, unlike her late husband, and has never been accused or convicted of any crime, she has endured house arrest without charges and subject to 24-hour surveillance since 2010, in contravention of Article 39 of the 1982 Constitution of China, which states that "the freedom of movement of any law-abiding Chinese citizen shall not be infringed", as well as Article 252 of the Criminal Prosecution Ordinance, which states that "any act of violating the freedom of communication of any law-abiding Chinese citizen is strictly prohibited". She is denied access to a phone or a computer. Since Liu's sea burial, neither Liu Xia nor her brother has been seen amidst reports that she had been forced to go on vacation in the southern province of Yunnan, so that she would not attend a memorial for her husband on the seventh day following his death, which had been held by various people abroad. Liu's friends in mainland China were reportedly subjected to house arrest as they prepared for a memorial – some were detained after staging ceremonies at the seaside at Dalian. Media have reported that the area in which Liu Xia's residence is situated is under heavy guard by plainclothes officials, who threaten and manhandle journalists. Although NGOs, a number of foreign leaders, notably Angela Merkel, as well as British foreign secretary Boris Johnson have spoken out for Liu and her husband, urging the lifting of all restrictions on Liu Xia after her husband's death. On the other hand, Chinese officials state that Liu Xia is in fact free, contrary to reports by Western media and Liu's claim. Jerome Cohen, a professor at New