2 September is ‘National Day’ in Vietnam. On this day, the Vietnamese president often grants amnesty to prisoners of conscience. In view of this, Lawyers for Lawyers, together with a broad coalition of organizations, sent a letter to the Vietnamese authorities to urge them to comply with the decision of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) and to release Mr. Le Quoc Quan immediately and unconditionally.
To our disappointment, Quan was not released. Therefore the organisations have sent a petition to the WGAD once more, with a renewed call for action. Here you can find the press statement, and here the petition.
Le Quoc Quan was arrested on 27 December 2012, and convicted for 30 months in jail on charges of ‘tax evasion’. In 2013, the detention of Le Quoc Quan was condemned by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention as a violation of his right to freedom of expression and his right to a fair trial. It found that Le Quoc Quan had been targeted for his work as a lawyer and a blogger and called for his immediate release or for his conviction to be reviewed by an independent court.
Click here to see the letter that was sent.
