China has permanently revoked the licenses of two human rights lawyers, the New York Times reports. At least they didn't put burning cigarettes to their eyes, as they did to another human rights lawyer we wrote about here.
From yesterday's State Department press briefing: "Assistant Secretary Mike Posner looks forward to welcoming a Chinese delegation later this week for the Human Rights Dialogue. It's important to us and it allows you to get down and drill down to some particular cases, but also in some particular areas, we will draw upon outside experts who will help also to explain to China in the 21st century how a country like China can relate to organized religion. We'll have a conversation with them about what the rule of law means in the 21st century. So this is about helping them understand and identify issues that are part of our core agenda, but also clearly areas of weakness that China will have to improve on as it goes along."