China placed a poet and prominent advocate for Tibetan rights under house arrest along with her husband.  The two were invited to the American Embassy in Beijing to have dinner with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Cops refused to allow Tsering Woeser and her husband author Wang Lixiong to leave their apartment, shortly after they had returned to it from a trip to China’s north.  Tsering said the security personnel – two outside the elevator and two on the ground floor or her apartment building – who detained her had declined to say why she was being held.  But on her Facebook page, she said it was because the couple was invited to an official dinner at the US Embassy, which she did not know would include the Secretary when she accepted.

A senior US administration official said Kerry raised the issue of human rights in a “direct, candid way” with senior Chinese officials. Kerry also discussed the treatment of minorities as well as the situation in the western regions of Xinjiang and Tibet.  He’s in Beijing along with US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew for annual talks with Chinese officials on political and economic issues.