Nguyen Lan Thang
Nguyen Lan Thang is a human rights defender who has actively and peacefully defended human rights in Vietnam for over a decade. As an independent journalist, Nguyen Lan Thang has peacefully photographed and documented a large number of events related to human rights. Beside doing charity and voluntary work for marginalized groups in the country, he is also active in the promotion and development of civil society. Nguyen Lan Thang is a member of No-U Football Club Hanoi, which protests against China’s sweeping sovereignty claims in the South China Sea. On 5 July 2022, Nguyen Lan Thang was arrested by the Investigation Bureau of the Hanoi Police on charges of “making, storing, distributing, or disseminating information, documents, and items against the State'' under Article 117 of the 2015 Criminal Code. Since then, he has been held incommunicado, has no access to his legal counsel or family visits, and his health has reportedly been deteriorating.
Human Rights defenders in Vietnam have been facing a diverse range of attacks, including but not limited to, arbitrary and incommunicado detention, intimidation, house arrest, threats and judicial harassment. State actors have often been the perpetrators of violence against HRDs, which is almost always carried out without impunity. HRDs who work on citizen participation, the freedom of expression and environment rights face the most amount of threats and harassment in the hands of the state.
