Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards

In five days from now, on 2 October 2013, the People’s Court in Hanoi, Viet Nam, will hear the case of human rights defender Le Quoc Quan, who has been held in detention since 27 December 2012 and whose trial was postponed on 8 July 2013. Le Quoc Quan is a prominent lawyer, blogger and human rights defender. He has a long history of being targeted by the Vietnamese authorities in retaliation for his work. As a lawyer, he represented many victims of human rights violations, but was disbarred in 2007 on suspicion of engaging in “activities to overthrow the regime”. Le Quoc Quan also runs a blog http://lequocquan.blogspot.ie/  where he writes about various issues including civil rights, political pluralism and religious freedom. On 27 December 2012, Le Quoc Quan was arrested on trumped up allegations of tax evasion, was held incommunicado for the first two months and spent fifteen days on hunger strike. Currently the human rights defender remains imprisoned awaiting trial.

More information, please see update from 12 July 2013 http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/23255

This entry was posted on September 27, 2013 at 11:09 and is filed under Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders.

Tags: blogger, freedom of expression, Front Line (NGO), Hanoi, Human right, human rights, Human Rights and Liberties, Human rights defender, hungerstrike, illegal detention, Le Quoc Quan, People's Court, Quoc Quan, religion, Trial