By Thy Vo, Voice of OC
Dozens of supportive Vietnamese Americans filled the Garden Grove City Council chambers Tuesday night as council members voted to support pending federal legislation imposing financial and travel sanctions on individuals complicit in human rights abuses against Vietnamese nationals.
City council in a board meeting. Photo by Linh Nguyen/Nguoi Viet
The unanimous city council vote supported House Bill 4254, known as the Vietnam Human Rights Sanctions Act, which was introduced in March by Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton).
“Our support will be part of an ongoing thread and movement in Garden Grove,” said Councilman Kris Beard, who put the issue on the agenda. “We’re sending a profound message that Garden Grove is a communist-free zone.”
The bill would create a list of individuals who would be prohibited from entering the United States and purchasing, importing or exporting property and other financial transactions. The sanctions would only be lifted if Vietnam agrees to free political prisoners, ceases imprisonment of Vietnamese citizens for engaging in peaceful political activity, and conducts a transparent investigation into the killings of political activists.
Dai Pham, who was imprisoned in Vietnam, was one of fourteen speakers who addressed the council in support of the item.
“I was one of the last ten prisoners released after 17 years, and I want to speak up that Vietnam under the communists is the most inhumane regime in the world,” said Pham. “[This bill] would help break loose the dictatorial grip on the Vietnamese people.”
Several politicians also turned out in support of the item, including candidates for city council, Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who is running for the State Senate, her chief of staff, Andrew Do and former Chief of Staff Tam “Nick” Lecong. Do, a former Garden Grove city councilman, had largely disappeared from public life after resigning from Nguyen’s staff in 2010, but went back to work for her in May.
The council’s support for the Royce bill was no surprise. Garden Grove and neighboring Westminster and Santa Ana are home overall to the largest Vietnamese American community in the country. Garden Grove has passed several symbolic resolutions in line with the prevailing anti-communism of the Vietnamese refugee community.
In 2003, the City Council voted to adopt the old South Vietnamese flag, a yellow field with three horizontal red stripes, for official events instead of flying the flag of the current Socialist Republic of Vietnam government.
Read the full story by Thy Vo, Voice of OC.
