A woman known as the “bravest female lawyer in China,” has been honored by the United States with an International Women of Courage Award. Wang Yu, one of China’s most prominent human rights lawyers, was arrested and imprisoned amid an infamous nationwide round-up of hundreds of lawyers and rights advocates known as the “709 crackdown” in 2015. She has since been released and is now under an exit ban. The lawyer has defended activists, scholars, Falun Gong practitioners, farmers, and petitioners in cases involving a range of issues from women’s and children’s rights to religious liberty to freedom of expression. Wang did not attend the virtual ceremony hosted by the U.S. State Department on March 8. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a speech said the department had not been in regular communication with Wang over the past few days. “We’re concerned because we know that she wanted to attend …