The mobile phone of his wife, Liu Xia, was turned off Saturday as she was expected to be en route with police to the prison to meet her husband.

“She’s disappeared. We’re all worried about them,” Liu’s lawyer, Shang Baojun, told The Associated Press on Saturday.

He said even Liu Xia’s mother had been unable to reach her…

Police often force political critics, religious dissenters and sometimes their family members to leave Beijing ahead of sensitive anniversaries, often putting them up in guesthouses and keeping them out of the way for days and weeks.