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CAMBODIA-RIGHTS-UN-POLITICS
UN expert warns of ‘climate of fear’ in Cambodia
GENEVA, Sept 27, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A UN expert on the rights situation
in Cambodia decried Thursday that laws were being used to rein in dissent and
were creating a “climate of fear” in the country.
UN Special Rapporteur for Cambodia Rhona Smith voiced alarm over a
significant deterioration in the country’s political situation over the past
year and urged the government to change course.
In the run-up to controversial July elections, premier Hun Sen and his
ruling Cambodian People’s Party backed a crackdown on perceived threats,
including the shuttering of media outlets and jailing of political opponents
and journalists.
The main opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), was
dissolved, clearing the way for the CPP to take all 125 parliamentary seats
in the vote.
This effectively rendered Cambodia a one-party state, which the
international community has decried as a death knell to democracy.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Smith lamented the crackdown on
political opposition, civil society and the media in Cambodia.
“Laws are increasingly being used in Cambodia to oppress the opposition
and silence dissent and create a climate of fear,” she said.
In a report on the vote submitted to the UN Human Rights Council, she
also said the decision to dissolve the CNRP and ban a large number of senior
members of the former opposition from all political activity “seriously calls
into question the genuineness of these elections”.
– ‘Very worrying’ –
The elections, she said, had “consigned multiparty liberal democracy to
history for the next five years”.
She stressed that prior to the July vote, elections in Cambodia had been
steadily improving in terms of compliance with international human rights
standards and Cambodian laws.
And she said it was “encouraging” that a number of those detained in the
run-up to the vote had been released and some pardoned after the results were
confirmed.
But she stressed that many of those freed remained under judicial
supervision, meaning the charges against them had not been dropped, and they
remain at risk of being detained again at any time while awaiting trial.
Cambodia’s opposition leader Kem Sokha was released from jail earlier
this month. He had been arrested on September 3, 2017 on charges of treason,
just two months before his CNRP party was dissolved.
And 69-year-old Australian filmmaker James Ricketson was freed from jail
last Sunday after receiving a royal pardon.
He had been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment last month after being
convicted of espionage. He had been in detention since June last year after
he flew a drone over a rally of the now-defunct CNRP.
“Other journalists who are Cambodian are not so lucky,” Smith said,
adding that Ricketson’s position as an Australian with an international
profile had likely helped ensure his release.
“The situation is very worrying. It is not an easy place to be a
journalist or a particularly safe place to be a journalist,” she said.
BSS/AFP/RY/1823 hrs