The attorney and family friend, Liu Xiaoyuan, said he had met on Monday with Lu Qing and that she said her husband appeared to be in good physical condition. Mr. Ai also asked about the health of his mother and family, he said, but the circumstance of the supervised visit offered no chance to discuss how his captors were treating him or other details of his confinement.
News service reports stated that Mr. Ai, who suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, was receiving needed medications.
Ms. Lu said that Mr. Ai was not being held in a hospital or a jail but did not further describe his living conditions. “It appears he’s not in handcuffs, he was not wearing prison clothes and he was allowed to move freely within where he is living now,” Mr. Liu said. “So I guess it’s a form of house arrest, under supervision.”
Chinese authorities have yet to bring any charges against Mr. Ai, 53, who was seized at Beijing’s main airport on April 3 as he prepared to board a plane to Hong Kong. The government has since said that he was suspected of committing economic crimes, and tax investigators have searched his office records, Mr. Liu said.
A number of foreign governments, human rights organizations and art groups have denounced Mr. Ai’s detention, saying it was clearly linked to his sharp criticism of China’s government on a number of fronts. An internationally recognized artist and architect, Mr. Ai has used his art and leveraged his fame to criticize socials and political conditions in China, from restraints on freedom of expression to official corruption.
Mr. Ai’s mother said on Monday that she was relieved to learn that her son appears to be in good health but she said the family remains in the dark about why authorities are holding the activist.
“It is a huge relief to know that he was not tortured,” Gao Ying, 78, said in a telephone interview. She said Ms. Lu told her that “Weiwei seemed healthy and calm” and that “they seem to be treating him a civilized way.”
Ms. Lu was not allowed to ask her husband about his case during the visit, which lasted less than half an hour, Ms. Gao said.
Mr. Liu, the lawyer, said that Ms. Lu was taken by police to a location she did not recognize and talked with Mr. Ai across a table while police officials looked on.
Mr. Ai has emerged in recent years as a scathing critic of abuse of power by the Chinese government. He is the most prominent individual to be picked up by authorities in the biggest crackdown on dissent in years, apparently prompted by concerns that the revolts that have swept the Arab world would spill over into China.
Mr. Ai has not been charged with a crime, and his lawyer said police have not informed him or the family of the status of their investigation. Scores of others have been detained or put under house arrest since late February, many of them cut off from outside communication.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 16, 2011
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misspelled Lu Qing's name as?Lu Quing.
