More than 100 Vietnamese American community members gathered in Orange County, California, on Saturday, demanding an apology for refugee and Republican state senator Janet Nguyen after she was forcibly removed from the chamber.

The protest follows Nguyen’s censure by California Democrats on February 23, when she attempted to speak out in a ceremony honouring the late Sen. Tom Hayden, a former member of the body who was famous for protesting the Vietnam War and supporting Hanoi along with his then-wife Jane Fonda.

Nguyen was then removed from the Senate floor after Senate Majority Leader Bill Monning objected, and presiding Sen. Ricardo Lara, agreed, telling the senator that she was out of order.

Click on the video below to watch the incident on February 23, 2017.

Nguyen never finished her remarks, but she did later post her statement online instead.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Nguyen said the incident was a shock, “I’m very sad because the very people who elected me to represent them and be their voice on the Senate floor, I wasn’t allowed to speak on their behalf.”

Democratic senate president Kevin de León has promised a nonpartisan review to determine whether Democrats had any grounds to forcibly expel Nguyen from the chamber.

Nguyen maintains that they did not, since she was using the adjourn-in-memory period for the “adjournment in memory of Vietnamese and Vietnamese refugees,” many of whom were and are her constituents.

At the rally on Saturday, Vietnamese American leaders and Republican officials took turns criticising Democrats for suppressing Nguyen’s freedom of speech.

Garden Grove City Councilman Phat Bui condemned the episode. “The Senate majority silenced [Nguyen] … because they did not want to hear what she had to say… This is a wake-up call for all Vietnamese Americans. Our voices are not yet heard by the Senate majority. Our rights are not yet respected.”

Nguyen was also there to give a speech at the rally, saying her removal was a “dark chapter” in the Senate’s history.

“But let us not be defined by that incident,” she told the crowd, calling it a “historic day” that united the Vietnamese community.

Orange County is home to the largest Vietnamese American population in the country.

– with other agencies