page_title: Nguyen Quoc Quan
section_title: 2007 arrest
hierarchical_section_title: Nguyen Quoc Quan / 2007 arrest
caption_attribution_description: Vietnamese rallying for democracy, human rights in Vietnam and protesting the Vietnamese communist government's human rights abuses, on April 30, 2012 in commemoration of the Fall of Saigon. Vietnamese names for Fall of Saigon/Black April: Sự kiện 30 tháng 4 năm 1975, 30 tháng Tư, Tháng Tư Đen, Ngày Quốc Hận, Ngày miền Nam sụp đổ, Ngày Thống Nhất, Ngày Quốc Nhục, Ngày giải phóng miền Nam)
context_page_description: Dr. Nguyen Quoc Quan is a Vietnamese-born American mathematics researcher and human rights activist and a member of the leadership committee of the organization Viet Tan. He has been detained since April 17, 2012 after arriving at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. On April 28, 2012, Vietnam's state media reported the pro-democracy activist has been arrested and accused of organizing "terrorism" activities. Previously, Dr Quan was arrested in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam on a trip on November 17, 2007 for preparing pro-democracy flyers. During that first trip, he brought in a Vietnamese translation of the book From Dictatorship to Democracy about nonviolent resistance.
  He stood trial in Vietnam on May 13, 2008 on charges of "terrorism" and was sentenced to 6 months in prison. He was eventually released on May 17, 2008 and returned to his home in Elk Grove, California to his wife and two teenage sons. In 2012, he was re-arrested on another trip to Vietnam, and held in prison for 9 months. Following intense US pressure, he was deported on January 30, 2013.
context_section_description: Nguyen Quoc Quan entered Vietnam on November 15, 2007 on a bicycle through the Cambodian border.
  On November 17, 2007 along with two other Viet Tan members (Truong Van Ba, a Hawaiian restaurant owner, and Frenchwoman Nguyen Thi Thanh Van, a contributor to Viet Tan's Radio Chan Troi Moi radio show) he was arrested in the southern suburb of Ho Chi Minh City. At the time, they were leading a "democracy seminar" and preparing pro-democracy pamphlets, when 20 security officers raided the house. Also arrested in the same group were Vietnamese citizens Nguyen The Vu, Nguyen Trong Khiem, Nguyen Viet Trung and Thai journalist Somsak Khunmi.
  The two-page pamphlet titled "Non-Violent Struggle: The Approach To Overcome Dictatorship" (translated from Vietnamese) and protesters to "faithfully maintain the discipline of non-violence."
  The arrests were not officially confirmed by the Vietnamese government until November 22, 2007. During the press briefing, officials declined to state which laws the detained individuals have broken, nor released any information about Nguyen Quoc Quan, whose whereabouts remained unknown for almost a week.
  At the beginning, state-controlled media in Vietnam acknowledged jailing only some, but not all activists. The website of the newspaper Sai Gon Giai Phong originally showed an image of US national Nguyen Quoc Quan wearing prison garb, but hours later replaced it with a manipulated image of him wearing a white shirt. Subsequent articles also listed his nationality as "unknown".
  Authorities in Vietnam have attempted to link the arrest of these Viet Tan members to two Vietnamese Americans who reportedly attempted to smuggle firearms into the country six days after the original arrests. However, Viet Tan has firmly denied any association with those individuals.
caption: Vietnamese pro-democracy rally demanding for the release of Nguyen Quoc Quan