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US lawmaker targets Vietnam on rights WASHINGTON — Vietnamese officials complicit in human rights abuses would be barred from coming to the United States and doing business with US firms under a bill introduced Wednesday in the US Congress. The measure, crafted by Republican Representative Ed Royce, targets government officials, including police officers who commit abuses against political dissidents, according to a statement from his office. "With the Communist government in Vietnam increasing its crackdown on human rights, Congress needs to respond. Those squashing freedom must pay a price," Royce said in the statement. The legislation, which would need to clear the House of Representatives and the Senate before reaching President Barack Obama, criticizes Vietnam as a one-party state that resists democratic reforms. It would direct the US president to draw up a list of officials who "continue to wantonly disregard the human rights of the Vietnamese people" and impose financial and travel sanctions on those individuals. Royce also introduced a resolution urging the US State Department to include Vietnam on a US blacklist of countries guilty of "severe violations of religious freedoms." The list of "countries of particular concern" was created in 1999, but Vietnam was removed in 2006.
Vietnam Human Rights Network |