Plainclothes Agents in Hanoi Threaten Family of Prominent Human Rights Lawyer Le Quoc Quan

 

 

By Defend the Defenders

June 11, 2017

 

On June 8, a group of ten plainclothes agents came to the private residence of former political prisoner Le Quoc Quan in Hanoi, blocking the family from going out and threatening to kill him and his wife and three daughters if he continues to work for human rights and multi-party democracy.

The move came one week after Quan met with visiting U.S. Senator John McCain and other members of a delegation of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services where he reported the intensified political crackdown in Vietnam to the guests.

On the same day, police in Tan Lap ward, Buon Ma Thuot city in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak, kidnapped environmentalist Nguyen Dang Vu when he came from Ho Chi Minh City to visit some friends there, and tortured him for 31 hours before forcing him to go back to HCM City.

Meanwhile, authorities in Nghe An continue their persecution against local Catholic community, sending thugs to beat followers of the Van Thai church and vandalize the church in a bid to revenge for their voice against the Taiwanese Formosa steel plant which caused environmental catastrophe last year by discharging huge amount of toxic industrial waste into the central coastal waters.

Vietnam’s authorities handed over the decision of President Tran Dai Quang to revoke the citizenship of political dissident Pham Minh Hoang to the victim. The move aims to expel him to France as he also has French citizenship.

Vietnam’s police falsely told imprisoned Protestant pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh that his wife has been unfaithful with another man. The lie is just one of the many ways her husband has been mistreated in prison over the last six years, said his wife Tran Thi Hong, who is a member of the unsanctioned Vietnam Women for Human Rights.

The Vietnam Bar Federation has urged the country’s highest legislative body National Assembly (NA) to remove a controversial article in the amended Penal Code 2015 which regulates relationship between defending lawyers and their clients. In its statement sent to the NA’s chairperson, Standing Committee and Committee for Legal Affairs, Do Ngoc Thinh, president of the Vietnam Bar Federation said Article 19 of the amended Penal Code is against the Criminal Procedure Code and is not in line with international standard. The article states that lawyers will be punished if he/she does not denounce his/her clients.

 

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