had been delayed indefinitely. Haakon Hjelde, Norway's negotiator, reported that the postponement was not directly linked to the award, but Henning Kristofferson, director of international relations of the BI Norwegian School of Management, said it was fairly obvious that the PRC government would "never hold a high-level meeting with Norway shortly before or after the award ceremony", having made it plain that the award to Liu was "a big mistake." Law enforcement In the days immediately preceding the award ceremony, foreign media reported that Liu's home was under tight security. By what a correspondent for The Guardian called "a peculiar coincidence", construction barriers were erected on both sides of the road at the southern entrance of the residential complex which obscured the estate. Police cars were positioned on every nearby street corner; uniformed and plain-clothes police officers patrolled outside the apartment block, and a radio surveillance vehicle was stationed at the entrance to the compound. Neighbouring businesses were affected: the owner of a nearby restaurant was quoted as saying government officials had told him to close the business temporarily. Liu Xia was under house-arrest almost immediately after the announcement, and was escorted to Liaoning to visit her imprisoned husband. She reported that she was denied visitors, her telephones were repeatedly down, and complained that even her elderly mother had not been able to get through to her. Visitors were denied entrance to her residential compound, including Norwegian diplomats who had tried to visit her on 12 October; she was able to send out a few messages through Twitter. Chinese police stationed there cordoned off the area. Thus, journalists and well-wishers were kept at bay for several hours after the announcement; as she was being taken away to see her husband, Reuters heard her say "they are forcing me to leave Beijing". Dissident groups reported on 18 October that numerous supporters and associates of Liu may have been detained by police—that Tiananmen Mother Ding Zilin, and her husband Jiang Peikun, had not been seen or heard of for four days, and that their phones were cut off. Writer Jiang Qisheng went missing just days after the Nobel announcement. As exiled prominent activists and former activists were reportedly preparing to attend the award ceremony, some prominent individuals and activists inside China experienced travel problems. Economist Mao Yushi (who had signed Charter 08), Ai Weiwei, and the human-rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan were all