CNRP President Kem Sokha Arrested on Charges of conspiracy to Commit Regime Change

[geovalin]

CNRP president Kem Sokha was arrested after he had made claims  that the US government has supported CNRP to invoke ‘a change in Cambodia’. According to a Tweet from Kem Sokha’s daughter, Kem Monovithya, police were at that point  raiding his father’s house at about midnight Saturday.

 

“Kem Sokha is being arrested now,” She said, adding that many police came to carry out the arrest and his bodyguards were arrested as well. According to a reliable source, Kem Sokha has been arrested at 00:35 on charges of conspiring to commit treason leading to regime change.

 

The raid was made after a video footage was posted on Facebook which showed him talking to his supporters in Melbourne in 2014, boasting that that US government has been  helping him to make a change in Cambodia since 2013. Immediately after the arrest, the government released a statement, saying that the government would like to inform that Kem Sokha has been arrested today at 12:35am Sunday by police for a flagrant  crime in accordance with the criminal law of Cambodia.

 

read more http://www.khmertimeskh.com/5081076/cnrp-president-kem-sokha-arrested-claims-regime-change/

 

 

-- © Copyright Khmer Times 03/09

[geovalin]

Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha arrested, accused of treason

 

Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha was arrested in the capital Phnom Penh early on Sunday and accused of treason in a move critics said showed that Prime Minister Hun Sen was intensifying his attacks on opponents before 2018 elections.

 

“The Government wishes to inform the public that on September 3, at 12:35 am, Kem Sokha was arrested by the judicial police based on the in flagrante delicto crime under the Cambodian Code of Criminal Procedures," said a government statement issued on Sunday.

 

"The forgoing secret conspiracy is treason as stipulated in and punishable under article 443 of the Penal Code of Cambodia (Conspiracy with foreign power) under Chapter 2 of Breach of State Security and an act against the nation," said the statement, which also included a government appeal for calm.

 

Muth Chantha, Kem Sokha’s advisor, confirms that Kem Sokha and eight bodyguards of his were arrested at Kem Sokha’s home in Phnom Penh.

 

“It is a big deal and grave concern when the main and only opposition party president is arrested. This will certainly affect democracy and especially the upcoming national election,” Muth Chantha told RFA's Khmer Service.

 

Interior Ministry spokesperson Khieu Spheak told RFA that Kem Sokha was taken to Tra Peang Plong prison in Tbong Khmum province, near Cambodia's border with Vietnam.

The CNRP condemned the arrest, demanded Kem Sokha's unconditional release and appealed for international intervention in the case.

 

"The CNRP regards such a swift arrest, which was made in middle of the night while Kem Sokha is protected by his parliamentary immunity, as politically motivated and a violation of Cambodian laws and the constitution," the party said in a statement.

 

 

"The CNRP calls for his immediate and unconditional release and appeals to the international community to intervene to secure his release and stop the authorities from committing all forms of threats, intimidation and suppression of the CNRP and its officials at all levels," it said.

 

 

The arrest followed the expulsion last week of U.S.-funded NGO the National Democratic Institute, the shuttering of independent radio stations,  and other moves by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) that critics say are aimed at silencing voices critical of the party and Hun Sen ahead of national elections next year.

 

Reports in government-aligned media outlets in recent weeks have regularly attacked the CNRP, linking the daughters of party leader Kem Sokha to foreign nationals accused of plotting to overthrow the country’s government.

 

On Saturday, the pro-government Fresh News released a heavily edited video it said came from the Facebook account “Khmer Child” accusing Kem Sokha of following U.S. plans to pursue regime change in Cambodia, where Hun Sen has ruled for more than 32 years.

 

"The video clip posted by the Cambodian Broadcasting Network (CBN) based in Australia and other pieces of evidence the authorities have collected clearly show the secret conspiracy plot between Kem Sokha, his people and foreign nationals which impacts Cambodia," said the government statement.

 

Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said the arrest of Kem Sokha was a sign Hun Sen is unwilling to face legal, peaceful challengs to his three-decade rule.

"Clearly, Hun Sen and the CPP are afraid of democracy. They're afraid of free and fair elections, so they are using force through the legal system," he told RFA,

"Even doing it legally is not enough in Hun Sen's Cambodia, because he can just make up any charge, any time and this charge of treason is complely fake. It's dishonest.

 

Adams urged international aid donors to condemn the arrest and put pressure on the government to make "Hun Sen realize that he cannot govern as a dictator and retain any legitimacy at all."

Khem Sokha's arrest comes nine months after he received a royal pardon for charges that could have sent him to jail. The reprieve was granted by King Norodom Sihamoni following a request from Hun Sen.

 

Until the Dec. 2, 2016 pardon, Kem Sokha had been hiding out in the CNRP headquarters in Phnom Penh since police attempted to arrest him in May for ignoring court orders to appear as a witness in a pair of defamation cases related to his alleged affair with a hairdresser.

 

Kem Sokha has always maintained that his legal problems were politically motivated, and most independent analysts had agreed with him, viewing the cases against them as part of CPP efforts to hobble the opposition before June's local elections ad next year's parliament poll.

The CPP won June’s commune elections, but the CNRP received nearly 44 percent of all votes to the ruling party’s 51 percent, in an outcome that many see as a bellwether for next year’s parliamentary ballot.

Reported by Sonorng Kher for RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Paul Eckert

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/kemsokha-arrest-09022017163633.html

Copyright © 1998-2016, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036

 

 

-- © Copyright RFA 03/09

[geovalin]

Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha arrested over alleged plot

 

Prak Chan Thul

 

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha was arrested at his home in the capital Phnom Penh early on Sunday and the government of veteran Prime Minister Hun Sen said he was accused of treason.

 

The arrest marks a new escalation in a campaign against critics, independent media and any potential threats to Hun Sen’s hold on power ahead of an election next year at which Kem Sokha has been expected to be his main challenger.

 

The government said in a statement that it had a video clip and other evidence pointing to “secret plans of conspiracy between Kem Sokha, others and foreigners to harm the Kingdom of Cambodia.”

“The above act of this secret conspiracy is treason,” the statement said.

 

Hun Sen, 65, has ruled the Southeast Asian country for more than three decades. The former Khmer Rouge cadre has become one of China’s closest regional allies and has been making increasingly strident verbal attacks on the United States.

 

Kem Sokha, 64, has led the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) since his predecessor resigned in February, saying he feared a government plan to shut it down.

 

Pictures in Cambodian media showed him being led away with his hands behind his back.

Kem Sokha’s daughter, Monovithya Kem, who is also an official in the party, said on Twitter that her father had been taken away handcuffed after a raid by between 100 and 200 police, who had arrived without an arrest warrant.

 

“Kem Sokha whereabouts is still unknown,” she said on Twitter, after earlier saying he had been taken to city hall.

Kem Sokha made no immediate comment and it was not clear if he had legal representation at this stage.

U.S. ACCUSED

Fresh News, a pro-government website, had said before Kem Sokha’s arrest that it had video of Kem Sokha discussing overthrowing Hun Sen with support from the United States.

 

Neither the U.S. State Department nor the White House responded immediately to a request for comment.

The government has recently increased its rhetoric against the United States and last month ordered the expulsion of the U.S. State Department-funded National Democratic Institute pro-democracy group.

 

“Freedom of speech is rapidly becoming a highly endangered right in Prime Minister Hun Sen’s march down the road to dictatorship in Cambodia. Kem Sokha is now the latest victim,” said Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director of the Human Rights Watch campaign group. It called on donors to condemn the arrest.

 

Last month Hun Sen’s government stepped up attacks on the media, halting broadcasts by some radio stations and ordering an independent newspaper, The Cambodia Daily, to close if it did not pay a $6 million tax bill within days.

 

During Hun Sen’s rule Cambodia emerged from the devastating Khmer Rouge genocide to enjoy record years of economic growth of above 7 percent, but disaffection has been growing and he only just won the 2013 election against a unified opposition.

 

His Cambodian People’s Party also won local elections in June, but the opposition also fared reasonably well, increasing expectations of a close contest in the general election due in 2018.

 

Kem Sokha took over the party leadership after his predecessor, Sam Rainsy, resigned in February. Rainsy said he had quit to save the party in the face of a threatened ban on any party with a leader who has been convicted of a crime.

 

Rainsy lives in exile in France to avoid a defamation conviction he says was politically motivated.

 

Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Washington; Editing by Matthew Tostevin, Greg Mahlich

source https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cambodia-politics/cambodian-opposition-leader-kem-sokha-arrested-over-alleged-plot-idUSKCN1BD0Q2

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 03/09

[phycokiller]

hun sen obviously thinks that he will loose if they have a fair election, he will be gone soon but I guess his kids will try to maintain the dictatorship. sadly cambodia will have to accept it or fight on the streets.

[Baerboxer]

2 hours ago, phycokiller said:

hun sen obviously thinks that he will loose if they have a fair election, he will be gone soon but I guess his kids will try to maintain the dictatorship. sadly cambodia will have to accept it or fight on the streets.

 

He is determined to turn Cambodia into a one party state dictatorship headed by his family. 

 

Just like some of his eternal friends are or would like to do!

[geistfunke]

Little Cambodia is fighting the US Imperialism - wow!