Targeting Hanoi...
Royce Bill Will Bring Freedom of Information to Vietnam

WASHINGTON, D.C. (VF) Feb. 27, 2003. As part of a conceded effort to bar the free flow of news and other information into the country, the Communist Vietnamese government has been jamming Radio Free Asia's (RFA) signal since 1997. U.S. Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA-40) has now introduced a bill, the "Freedom of Information in Vietnam Act of 2003," to help Radio Free Asia build a more powerful transmitter, boosting its radio signal into Vietnam. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA-l6) cosponsored the bipartisan measure.

"Vietnam is among a number of countries that defy universal standards by blocking the free flow of information. As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes clear, everyone has the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers," said Royce, who represents a sizable portion of Orange County's Little Saigon, home to the largest Vietnamese commumty outside Vietnam. Many in that community fled the Communist juggernaut as Saigon fell in
1975.

The legislation will work to boost RFA broadcasts to Vietnam. The bill provides additional resources for another transmitter - to make the Vietnamese government's jamming efforts that much more difficult - as well as increasing broadcasts from 2 to 4 hours daily.

"With this legislation, RFA will now be better able to bring objective news - the truth - to the Vietnamese people. The spread of democratic values in Asia is critical to U.S. security interests, and RFA plays vital role. We know that these broadcasts are effective because the Vietnamese govenment spends so much energy trying to block them," said Royce.

In addition to the radio, Royce's bill also addresses the Internet. It establishes a pilot project within the International Broadcasting Bureau - the engineering arm of U.S. international broadcasting - to combat Internet jamming and censorship by the Vietnamese government.

"More and more young people are turning to the Internet. It is a 24-hour source for international and domestic political, religious, and economic news and information. Vietnam's authoritarian regime knows that unrestricted access to that information is a threat to their repressive rule - so they work to block access to the Internet," said Royce.

RFA is a private news corporation fully funded by a grant from the United States Congress. Royce authored the Radio Free Asia Act of 1997, legislation that significantly boosted broadcasting activities to China and North Korea