Journalist investigating protection racket in market threatened to “kill whole family”
Female reporter Lien Lien of VTV1 (Vietnam Television) said that last night (December 2) she suddenly received a text message from a strange phone number saying, "Stop trying to film us, you can't do anything... if you don't listen, your whole family will die because of you."
On the afternoon of December 3, female reporter Lien Lien said that at around 10:13 pm on December 2, she suddenly received 2 text messages from the same strange phone number with the following content: "Stop trying to film us anymore, you can't do anything. I'll say this only once and if you don't listen, your whole family will die because of you"; "Remember, your whole family will die if you try to provoke us."
The content of the message threatened female reporter Lien Lien.
Although the content of the above message did not specifically mention any incident, according to reporter Lien Lien, the content was directed towards the incident of collecting "protection" money at Long Bien market (Hanoi) by this female reporter and was continuously broadcast on Vietnam Television.
Reporter Lien Lien added that she had reported the above incident to the leadership of Vietnam Television. On December 3, Vietnam Television sent a dispatch to the Hanoi Police and the Ministry of Public Security requesting direction to investigate and handle the act of threatening to kill by the text message sender and to have a plan to ensure the safety of reporters.
Regarding the above incident, the reporter contacted the leader of Hanoi City Police, however, this leader only replied briefly "I contacted reporter Lien Lien to see if the petition has been sent yet, let's just know about this".
