Agents threaten to kill HRD & family
On 8 June 2017, a group of ten plainclothes agents went to the private residence of human rights defender Le Quoc Quan in Hanoi and prevented him and his family from going out. They threatened to kill him, his wife and his three daughters if he continued to work for human rights and multi-party democracy.
Le Quoc Quan is a Vietnamese human rights lawyer, democracy activist and Catholic blogger. Prior to his imprisonment in 2012, he ran a blog where he wrote about various issues including civil rights, political pluralism and religious freedom. As a lawyer, he represented many victims of human rights violations, before being disbarred in 2007 on the fabricated suspicion of engaging in “activities to overthrow the regime”. In 2013 Le Quoc Quan was sentenced to two and a half years in prison on a false charge of tax evasion.
On 8 June 2017, a group of ten plainclothes agents went to the private residence of human rights defender Le Quoc Quan in Hanoi and prevented him and his family from going out. They threatened to kill him, his wife and his three daughters if he continued to work for human rights and multi-party democracy.
Le Quoc Quan is a Vietnamese human rights lawyer, democracy activist and Catholic blogger. Prior to his imprisonment in 2012, he ran a blog where he wrote about various issues including civil rights, political pluralism and religious freedom. As a lawyer, he represented many victims of human rights violations, before being disbarred in 2007 on the fabricated suspicion of engaging in “activities to overthrow the regime”. In 2013 Le Quoc Quan was sentenced to two and a half years in prison on a false charge of tax evasion.
On 8 June 2017, a dozen plainclothes officers surrounded Le Quoc Quan’s home in Hanoi and threatened to kill him and his family if he did not stop his human rights work. The incident came one week after Le Quoc Quan met with visiting U.S. Senator John McCain and other members of a delegation of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, during which he reported the intensified political crackdown currently being carried out in Vietnam. Le Quoc Quan reported the threats against him to the police station of Yen Hoa, Cau Giay District, Hanoi.
Front Line Defenders expresses concern at this recent act of intimidation against the family of Le Quoc Quan and urges the Vietnamese authorities to carry out an immediate and impartial investigation into the death threats against him and his family.
