that he was assigned to hard labor despite declining health. Vietnam's foreign ministry denied the statement. In April 1991, U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey attempted repeatedly to meet with Que, but was refused; U.S. Senator Charles S. Robb, whose district included Que's brother, was blocked by the Vietnamese government from meeting with Que to bring him medicine in August 1993. Que's case was also taken up by the European Parliament, Amnesty International, and France. Que was released in a 1998 general amnesty that included fellow dissident Doan Viet Hoat. Both Que and Hoat were offered resettlement in the United States on the condition that they leave the country. Que refused, stating that he would rather stay in prison than be forced into exile. Later activism Que remained in Vietnam, and on 12 May 1999, posted a statement to the Internet advocating free elections for the National Assembly. On 17 March 2003, Que was arrested for again after he wrote a series of articles about Vietnamese media censorship, with the regime accusing him of "espionage". On 29 January 2004, the Ho Chi Minh People's Court found him guilty of "abusing democratic rights to jeopardise the interests of the state, and the legitimate rights and interests of social organisations and citizens" and sentenced to 30 months' imprisonment. On September 22, 2004, Que was secretly sent to a hard labor camp (gulag) in Thanh Hoa Province. However, he was granted an amnesty on 31 January 2005 for Tết, the Vietnamese New Year, along with fellow dissidents Nguyen Van Ly, Nguyen Dinh Huy, and Huynh Van Ba. In mid-February 2011, Que posted an Internet appeal for mass demonstrations in Vietnam on the model of the Arab Spring uprisings, calling on citizens to make a "clean sweep of Communist dictatorship and build a new, free, democratic, humane and progressive Vietnam". He was then detained by the authorities for "directly violating the stability and strength of the people's government". Following a raid on his home, police reported that they had found thousands of anti-government documents in his home. A government media report stated that he had been caught "red-handed keeping and distributing documents" calling for revolution. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release. On 6 March 2012, former U.S. Representative Joseph Cao organized a Vietnamese-American lobbying effort for Que, Nguyen Van Ly, Dieu Cay, and other Vietnamese political prisoners, calling