By Art Campos
Published 8:21 pm PDT Saturday, May 17, 2008
Greeted by a cheering crowd, a Sacramento area activist who was jailed for six months in Vietnam arrived Saturday night at San Francisco International Airport.
Nguyen Quoc Quan of Elk Grove, who had been incarcerated for handing out pro-democracy literature, was given a reception by his family and friends after his plane touched down about 7:30 p.m.
“There were about 100 people there, and they had balloons, banners and flags and were chanting his name,” said Melanie Ramil, field representative for Sacramento Assemblyman Dave Jones, who lobbied aggressively for Nguyen’s release.
The 54-year-old Nguyen, an engineer who is married and has two teenage children, was convicted of terrorism in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday, but not until after he had been held in jail for six months for distributing the leaflets.
He was sentenced to six months, with credit for time served, and was ordered deported by the Vietnamese government.
Nguyen is a member of Viet Tan, the International Vietnamese Reform Party. Viet Tan has been labeled a terrorist organization by Vietnam.
When arrested, Nguyen was distributing 7,000 leaflets promoting nonviolent protest in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi and the movements that helped topple communism in Eastern Europe