On February 15, 2016, 134 Nobel laureates asked Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping to release Liu Xiaobo, who has been jailed since 2009. By the 17th February over 300 persons had signed the appeal. His wife, Liu Xia, in her first press interview since being placed under house detention, told the Associated Press news agency that "I felt I was a person emotionally prepared to respond to the consequences of Liu Xiaobo winning the [Nobel] prize. But after he won the prize, I really never imagined that after he won, I would not be able to leave my home.I think Kafka could not have written anything more absurd and unbelievable than this."