Chinese Lawyers Arrested Before Meeting with Congressmen

From Washington Post:

A group of Chinese human rights lawyers were detained and later put under house arrest by government security officials to prevent them from attending a dinner Sunday hosted by two visiting members of the U.S. Congress.

The incident is the latest in a series of moves Chinese officials have made to clamp down on dissent in the run-up to the Summer Olympic Games, which open August 8 in Beijing.

“The actions show an unhealthy brazenness in regards to human rights,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview Tuesday.

Smith and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) had invited several dissident lawyers to meet with them Sunday night, but then learned that police took two lawyers from their homes that afternoon, drove them to a Beijing suburb and barred them from returning to the city. Police blocked another invitee from leaving his apartment complex and either warned or barred at least six other lawyers from attending, according to Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an advocacy group.

Read also U.S. lawmakers decry Olympics after dissidents blocked by Chris Buckley.

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