The agency said the “streamlined” human rights reports adhere more closely to what’s required to be in them by law. “We expected women’s rights and minority rights to be cut out,” said Yaqui Wang, a longtime China Human rights researcher, most recently with Freedom House. “But even freedom of expression — the international understanding of what the U.S. considers as human rights, number one — has been cut. Wang says that for human rights defenders and journalists, the reports are more than a record — they are a tool. Legal obligations in questionThe administration insists it remains committed to defending human rights.