In the morning on 30 January 2015, two unidentified men came to human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai's apartment in the capital Hanoi, violently broke the front door and threatened to burn his home and assault him. Nguyen Van Dai is a prominent human rights lawyer and pro-democracy activist in Vietnam, and one of several human rights defenders who have been attacked in recent weeks. He reported the incident to the local police. Nguyen Van Dai has been a target of persecution, including arbitrary detention, ever since he co-founded a human rights group in 2006. He is currently under house arrest in Hanoi, due to end in March, after serving out a four-year sentence. "The attack on lawyer Dai and the serious threats against him highlights the risks facing Vietnamese human rights defenders," said Marie M�_nson, Human Rights Defenders at Risk Programme Director at Civil Rights Defenders. The latest attack on Nguyen Van Dai came just days after a violent assault on 12 bloggers and activists by plainclothes agents in Thai Binh province. The assault took place when the group of activists were stopped by police following their visit to a recently-released political prisoner. The same week in Ho Chi Minh City, activist and Mennonite Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang, one of Dai's former clients and a former political prisoner, was injured and hospitalised after an attack with bricks and clubs by a group of thugs. Another pastor who was with him at the time received minor physical injuries. On 9 December 2014, a group of people stopped vocal blogger Nguyen Hoang Vi in the street near her home, pulling her by the hair and punching her. Security forces nearby reportedly did not intervene. A network of women human rights defenders has begun documenting attacks, including sexual harassment, against women human rights defenders. Nguyen Hoang Vi has been the victim of numerous attacks in recent years. In November, police officers assaulted and injured Truong Minh Duc, a former political prisoner, freelance writer and reportedly a member of Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam. He narrowly escaped death in the attack, which took place outside Ho Chi Minh City. None of the perpetrators in these attacks on peaceful activists and others have been brought to justice, further compounding the vulnerable situation of the human rights defenders. "The on-going impunity for attacks on defenders is a disturbing reminder that Vietnam's portrayal of its human rights record to the international community bears little resemblance to reality. Human rights defense and human rights education contribute to social progress and stability, and those who carry out the work deserve protection and recognition, not persecution and reprisal", added Marie M�_nson. UPDATED : (7 April 2015) L4L is very concerned about the ongoing harassment of human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai. Dai was under house arrest in Hanoi since 2011, serving a four-year sentence that was due to end on 5 March 2015. He has been the victim of several acts of intimidation in the months leading up to the end of his house arrest. On 30 January 2015, two unidentified men broke the front door of his apartment in Hanoi, and threatened to burn his home and assault him. He reported the incident to the police. On the day his house arrest was supposed to end, the authorities informed him they wouldn't officially end his probation unless he would officially promise, at the police station, that he would not continue his work as a human rights lawyer or any other work criticizing the government. When Dai refused to do so, "thugs" were sent to his home to harass him on March 5 and 6. Shortly thereafter, the authorities have given Dai the written confirmation of the expiration of his house arrest. Lawyers for Lawyers has been informed, however, that the police is still surveilling him. Nguyen Van Dai is, since his return to Vietnam after years in Eastern-Germany, a well-known human rights activist. He has been under control of government officials for many years now, and this house arrest followed on the four years imprisonment he was sentenced to in 2007 for propaganda against the state. Dai founded the Committee for Human Rights of Vietnamand his work as a human rights lawyer and blogger is disapproved by the Vietnam authorities. The recent attacks on Dai come in a context of a series of physical assaults against human rights defenders, bloggers and human rights lawyers that have taken place in the previous months, which were perpetrated either by police officers or groups of people in the street. Reportedly, there has been a failure to investigate these attacks. In a letter, L4L called on the Vietnamese authorities investigate the attacks on Nguyen Van Dai. Source: Lawyers for Lawyers