"Two prominent women - Liu Xia and Cao Shunli - were hospitalized in poor health this week, after months or years of detention, according to their lawyers and friends.
Ms. Liu, 52, the wife of the jailed Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, has been under effective house arrest for three years as her husband serves an 11-year jail term for 'inciting subversion of state power.' She was hospitalized on Tuesday, or Sunday - accounts vary - with severe depression and a heart ailment. Her emotional and mental state has long been regarded as fragile by supporters.
Ms. Cao, 52, a former cadre at the now-disbanded Ministry of Labor and Manpower, was detained after she took part in sit-down protests last year outside the Foreign Ministry, where she and others called for ordinary Chinese to be allowed to contribute to an assessment of human rights in China, part of the United Nations' Universal Periodical Review. The protests had failed - Chinese officials did not allow them to contribute to the country's human rights report, and late last year China was elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council despite what critics called a record of rights abuses.
On Thursday morning, Ms. Cao was sent to an emergency hospital in Beijing where she was put on a ventilator, said her lawyer, Wang Yu, and a friend, Liu Xiaofang. Ms. Wang and Ms. Liu said she had tuberculosis, a liver complaint and uterine fibroids."