Garden Grove City Council members are deciding this week whether to support a U.S. House of Representatives bill that imposes sanctions on people responsible for human rights violations in Vietnam.

Authored by Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton), HR 4254 would require President Barack Obama to identify Vietnamese nationals and their families who have been complicit in human rights abuses in Vietnam and impose financial and travel sanctions on them.

The sanctions would only be lifted when the Vietnamese government unconditionally releases all political prisoners, ceases human rights violations and prosecutes those responsible for the abuses.

According to the bill, which is co-authored by Democratic Representatives Alan Lowenthal of Long Beach and Loretta Sanchez of Santa Ana, for the past four decades, the Vietnamese government has “denied basic human rights to the people of Vietnam and severely limited their freedom of expression and religion.”

Garden Grove is home to about 48,000 Vietnamese people, one of the highest concentrations in the nation, and many still have close relatives and other connections to the country.

The council meeting starts Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.

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