The chief of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that gives out the Nobel Peace Prize said on Friday that China had rejected her visa application to attend Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo funeral. “I was told that my visa application was incorrectly filled in...because I did not have an invitation from the person I was visiting,” Berit Reiss-Andersen told Reuters.

Reiss-Andersen said the Chinese consulate in Oslo had refused to receive her visa application. “When I told them I would be attending a funeral and that the person had passed away, I was told I should try a relative,” she said. “I told them she [Liu’s wife] was kept in isolation...I was also told that I should have a hotel and plane ticket booked.”

Liu, China’s most prominent human rights and democracy advocate, died at the age of 61 on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize winner had been diagnosed with liver cancer in May and granted medical parole in June.

The activist was serving an 11-year sentence for writing a pro-democracy manifesto called Charter 08, where he called for an end to one-party rule in China. He had been jailed multiple times throughout his life. His wife had also been placed under house arrest.