The Investigation Security Agency under the Hanoi City Police Department, arrested Mr. Le Trong Hung on the morning of March 27, 2021, after he submitted a petition to the authorities to protect him during his campaign to run for a seat in the country’s legislative body National Assembly in May election.
Mr. Hung is one of more than 70 self-nominated candidates for the 15th National Assembly (2021 – 2026).
The reporter of Radio Free Asia in the afternoon of March 27 called the Hanoi Security and Investigation Agency, but the person who picked up the phone refused to answer the question and asked the reporter to come directly to the agency.
Mrs. Do Le Na, Hung’s wife told RFA, he was arrested while returning home and the police automatically took the key to open the door and conducted a search of the couple’s house. She reported the incident over the phone as follows:
“Yesterday afternoon they sent someone to guard our private residence, our family kept thinking that they were watching normally, not knowing what they were watching; or maybe it was because Hung wrote a petition to the local authorities to request for protecting him as he runs for the parliament.
Yesterday afternoon, someone came to watch but our family ignored it, just thought it was related to it.
Until this morning, around 10 o’clock he took his two children out, he was about ten meters away from home, then they (Hanoi police -reporter) took him away.
They took my two children into a neighbor’s house then they took the key from my husband and they unlocked their house and broke into it.
I was working on the 3rd floor, they went up, they forced me to come down and then read the house search order.
They said they searched their home to confiscate documents related to the ‘Stockpiling and distributing documents against the state’s case.”
Ms. Do Le Na said that she did not sign the police report of a house search because her family had no one to witness the search, so the police did not hand over the report to her family.
Mr. Le Trong Hung on March 18 posted on his personal Facebook photos and documents showing that he had submitted his own candidacy for the 15th National Assembly at the Hanoi Election Commission.
Mr. Hung is one of the few self-nominated candidates for the National Assembly whose action plan is to build a Citizen path for the Vietnamese people by awarding Vietnamese Constitutions and campaigning for the establishment of a court to protect the Constitution and mobilize the National Assembly to issue a law on demonstrations, a law on supervision of citizens, etc.
Ms. Do Le Na said that she was surprised when her husband was arrested because after giving the Constitution copies issued by the regime, Mr. Hung changed his candidacy for National Assembly member for the popularization of the Constitution more widely. She said:
“I feel very surprised and very dissatisfied because being a good person for the state, for society … even his work, friends on the Democratic side do not like it, they think his works are benefiting the state.
There are many people who do not like it and the government also dislikes my husband. I do not understand what it is like when it is absolutely right.”
Mr. Le Trong Hung was born in 1979, is a former teacher of biochemistry at Xa Dan Primary School, Dong Da District, Hanoi City.
In 2015, he quit teaching after denouncing the school principal’s mistakes and then participating in independent journalism through live broadcasts on Facebook and Youtube with some other activists called the CHTV channel.
Recently, he turned to campaign to buy the Vietnamese Constitution and give it to many people across the country until the date of his arrest.
Currently, the Vietnamese authorities and state media have not had information about the arrest of Mr. Le Trong Hung.
On March 11, the investigation and police agency of Ninh Binh province also arrested Mr. Tran Quoc Khanh, 61, a person who also applied for running for National Assembly in Hanoi on charges of “spreading documents aimed at fighting the state.”
Thoibao.de (Translated)
