July, 14 2009, 04:52pm EDT
Cambodia: End Assault on Opposition, Critics
Prime Minister Hun Sen Launches Harshest Crackdown in Years
NEW YORK
The Cambodian government of Prime Minister Hun Sen should end its campaign of harassment, threats, and unwarranted legal action aimed at consolidating its rule by silencing the political opposition and peaceful critics, Human Rights Watch said today.
In recent months, senior Cambodian government leaders and military officials have filed at least nine politically motivated criminal defamation and disinformation cases against journalists, opposition members of parliament, lawyers, and government critics.
"The Cambodian government is imposing its most serious crackdown on freedom of expression in recent years," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Once again, Hun Sen is showing his true stripes by harassing and threatening to imprison peaceful critics of his increasingly authoritarian government."
Government attempts to muzzle free expression have intensified in recent weeks:
- On June 22, 2009, the National Assembly voted to lift the parliamentary immunity of two of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party's (SRP) most active members, Mu Sochua and Ho Vann, paving the way to try them on criminal charges of defamation against Hun Sen and 22 military officials, respectively.
- On June 26, a Phnom Penh court sentenced Hang Chakra, owner of the opposition newspaper Khmer Machas Srok (Khmer Landowner), to one year in prison on charges of disinformation after the newspaper published articles on government corruption.
- On July 7, Kong Sam Onn, one of the few private lawyers who had been brave enough to represent opposition SRP members in court, "defected" to the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and dropped his representation of Mu Sochua and Ho Vann after he was sued for defamation by Hun Sen and threatened with disbarment by the Cambodian Bar Association for representing Mu Sochua against criminal defamation charges.
- On July 10, Dam Sith, the owner of Moneaksekar Khmer (Khmer Conscience), one of Cambodia's oldest and most influential opposition papers, closed the newspaper to avoid criminal prosecution for criticism of government officials.
- On July 14, Moeung Sonn, president of the Khmer Civilization Foundation, a nonprofit organization, was sentenced in absentia to two years in prison on charges of disinformation after he raised concerns about the effect of installation of lights on the Angkor monuments.
With the resignation of their lawyer, opposition lawmakers Ho Vann and Mu Sochua have not been able to find other lawyers willing to represent them in their upcoming trials, scheduled for July 17 and July 24, respectively.
"If Ho Vann and Mu Sochua are convicted, there's a real chance that two of the most active opposition voices will permanently lose their seats in the National Assembly," said Adams. "Key issues are at stake here - multi-party democracy, rule of law, independence of lawyers, and freedom of expression."
Human Rights Watch expressed concern about the coerced closure of Moneaksekar Khmer on July 10, prompted by a battery of defamation, disinformation, and incitement suits filed by the government against the newspaper's editor, Dam Sith, a member of the board of directors of the Sam Rainsy Party. After Sith pledged to close the paper in a letter of apology to Hun Sen on July 8, the charges were reportedly dropped.
Since it began publication in Phnom Penh in 1993, Moneaksekar Khmer has experienced regular threats, intimidation, and even the killing of one of its staff. Khim Sambo, a reporter for the paper, was killed just weeks before national elections in July 2008 and shortly after the one-week detention, in June, of Dam Sith on disinformation charges filed by the foreign minister.
The two other main newspapers formerly affiliated with the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) have also been targeted. In late June 2009, Hang Chakra, owner of Khmer Machas Srok newspaper, was sentenced to a year in prison on disinformation charges, for articles concerning corruption in the office of Deputy Prime Minister Sok An.
In 2008, the popular pro-SRP newspaper Sralang Khmer (Love Khmer) suddenly re-aligned toward the ruling party after its editor, Thach Ket, a board member of the SRP, was pressured to defect, during a period when the ruling party was being accused of using threats and inducements to obtain coerced defections of opposition leaders.
Perhaps the most outrageous misuse of criminal defamation charges has been in the conviction in early June of SRP youth activist Soung Sophorn, after he wrote slogans criticizing the government on the outside walls of his own house, which was slated for forced eviction for a new development on land owned by a ruling-party senator.
The recent lawsuits have all been filed under the broadly worded articles 62 (Disinformation; distribution of false information "likely to disturb the public peace") and 63 (Defamation and Libel) of the temporary penal code promulgated in 1992 by the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia. While imprisonment was removed as a penalty for defamation in 2006, it remains a criminal offense, and prison sentences of up to three years still apply for disinformation. Human Rights Watch said that criminal defamation laws violate the internationally protected right to freedom of expression and have a chilling effect on government critics and the media.
The string of lawsuits has effectively muzzled opposition voices, with an SRP member of parliament, Son Chhay, commenting in a Radio Australia interview on July 9: "We have no alternative. I think we will quiet down for a while. We are not going to raise the issue of corruption. We are not going to speak about land-grabbing. We are not going to talk about the corrupt court system."
Human Rights Watch urged Cambodia's international donors, especially those funding programs promoting the rule of law, judicial reform, human rights, and good governance, to insist that the Cambodian government cease its harassment and abusive legal actions against opposition members.
"The space for opposition media and peaceful dissent is rapidly shrinking in Cambodia, especially now with the closure of one of Cambodia's last remaining opposition newspapers," said Adams. "Cambodia's laws criminalizing peaceful speech should be repealed so that Hun Sen and other officials can no longer threaten journalists with jail for practicing their profession."
"Through violence, threats and money politics, Hun Sen already controls almost every aspect of Cambodia's politics," said Adams. "Yet his efforts to silence dissent seem endless. Why does he seem to wake up every day looking for enemies to persecute? Will this ever end?"
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
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"Procedural irregularity, a lack of transparency about the university's decision-making, and the extraordinary involvement of the NYPD all threaten the university's legitimacy within its own community and beyond its gates," they wrote. "We urge the university to conform student discipline to clear and well-established procedures that respect the rule of law."
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Kharge responded to Modi's remarks by blasting the "panic-filled" address as "not only a hate speech but also a well-thought-out ploy to divert attention" by the prime minister, the BJP, and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)—a fascist-inspired political and paramilitary movement whose brand of Hindu supremacy heavily influenced the rise of the BJP.
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Thousands of Indians petitioned the country's Election Commission seeking punitive action against Modi.
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Muslim groups around the world also slammed Modi's speech, which the U.S.-based Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) called "hateful and dangerous."
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South Asia historian Audrey Truschke, a professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, accused Modi of "straight-up fascism."
"Modi had a history of encouraging mass violence against Muslims," Truschke added. "So we should all take his words seriously."
Modi was chief minister of the western state of Gujarat in February 2002 when a train full of Hindu pilgrims was set ablaze, killing 58 people. The cause of the disaster remains disputed, but Modi was quick to blame Muslims for the fire. In a three-day paroxysm of intercommunal bloodletting, Hindu mobs murdered at least hundreds—and perhaps thousands—of Muslim men, women, and children. Many women and girls were raped. More than 250 Hindus were also killed during what came to be called the Gujarat riots, during which an estimated 150,000 people were also forcibly displaced.
A team sent by the British government concluded that Modi was "directly responsible for a climate of impunity" that enabled the pogrom. However, a special investigation commissioned by the Indian Supreme Court cleared him of complicity in 2012. Modi's alleged role in the massacre led to a U.S. visa ban during the George W. Bush administration that was lifted during the tenure of former President Barack Obama after Modi became prime minister.
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Earlier this year, Progressive International's (PI) executive body used Modi's consecration of a highly controversial Hindu temple on the former site of a 16th-century Muslim mosque destroyed by a Hindu nationalist mob as an opportunity to issue a warning about the accelerating erosion of democracy in India.
"The Modi government has made a decisive move to overthrow India's secular constitution in the name of a new Hindu supremacist nation," PI's statement asserted. "As prime minister, Modi has pushed this Hindu nationalism as India's dominant political force: banning the hijab in schools, introducing 'anti-conversion' laws, abusing municipal forces to demolish Muslim households and shops in cities, and pushing for a 'uniform civil code' in law."
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