Ed Royce: “I'm an original cosponsor of this bill, H.R. 1410. This is the Vietnam Human Rights Act. And I guess it's no surprise to…”

“I'm an original cosponsor of this bill, H.R. 1410. This is the Vietnam Human Rights Act. And I guess it's no surprise to a lot of us that have followed what has happened in Vietnam, it denies its citizens basic human rights. But here's the problem: The conditions there with respect to abuse of rule of law are getting worse and worse. It used to be that we would watch show trials in terms of the abridgement of rights of the citizens of Vietnam; now they don't even have the show trials. Now the government just places those dissidents in police detention, and they do it without alerting the family, without alerting anyone. And at that point, you just have to say the rule of law has become nonexistent. We received a really stark reminder recently. Human rights dissident Nguyen Quoc Quan was arrested by Vietnamese officials. He had attempted to enter the country at Ho Chi Minh City's airport, and the charge that he was held on was terrorism. Terrorism was the original charge. {time} 1810 He didn't come to Vietnam equipped with guns or explosives. What's the terrorism charge? Well, he came to Vietnam to meet with other grassroots organizations committed to peaceful discussions on human rights inside the country. To the Vietnamese Communist Government, that's terrorism. That really says it all. The case of Nguyen Quoc Quan is not an isolated case.…”