Expression muffled: Adhoc

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May Titthara and Alice Cuddy

Basic freedoms of assembly and expression in Cambodia are “shrinking”, risking undermining decades of progress, a rights group said yesterday, as it called on the government to dedicate more time to meet and debate with civil society organisations.

In its report, The Right to Remain Silenced: Expressive Rights in the Kingdom of Cambodia, Adhoc says the government is “hostile to freedoms of expression and assembly as these freedoms provide the legal basis to expose rights abuses and those behind them and to protest when they occur.”

This hostility shows that the government has “chosen to ignore” human rights standards, it adds.

At a press conference yesterday, Adhoc director Ny Chakrya called the government “weak” for “implementing laws which are in stark contrast to its legal obligations”.

Chakrya said that despite relative calm in the run-up and immediate wake of last year’s election, freedom of expression “plummeted to zero” at the beginning of 2014, when violent government crackdowns on demonstrations killed at least five.

In the months after January’s violence, protests were forcefully dispersed, a ban on gatherings was introduced, journalists were targeted, and Freedom Park, the capital’s designated protest space, was shut.

Officials had previously said the reopening of the park was dependent on the closure of government investigations into the fatal violence of early January and other clashes, but as it opened earlier this month, any results remained elusive.

In its report, Adhoc calls on the government to pay heed to its own laws.

“Freedom of expression, a free press and the freedom of peaceful assembly must be protected” if the government is sincere in its commitment to human rights, it says.

Chan Soveth, a senior investigator at Adhoc, called on the government to meet with civil society groups twice a year to peacefully debate the issues.

“If the culture of debate is not created, mistrust still exists, freedom is restricted and impunity will continue,” he said.

Opposition spokesman Yim Sovann said that greater communication with civil society organisations would be a step forward.

“It is good. We should have a debate forum to share information to catch up with democratic countries,” he said.

Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan agreed, adding that the government has never stood in the way of such meetings.

“I welcome this, it opens a new era in Cambodia,” he said.

But Siphan added that the government’s crackdowns have been a necessary measure to protect public order as well as the law.

“We don’t want our country to turn into the Middle East,” he said.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/expression-muffled-adhoc

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Rally after officials call monk for questioning

Fri, 29 August 2014

Chhay Channyda

More than 100 monks turned out to protest at Sansam Kosal pagoda in Meanchey district yesterday after a Khmer Krom monk who took part in recent nationalist protests outside the Vietnamese Embassy was called to a meeting with district religious authorities.

The meeting was purportedly called by the municipal department of cults and religion to talk about administrative matters in the Stung Meanchey pagoda, where monk Yen Dara lives, but demonstrators feared he was going to be defrocked for his political activities.

Dara is a member of the Denmark-based Khmer National Liberation Front – the leader of which, Sam Serey, is wanted for arrest and has been sentenced in absentia for conspiring treason – and said he had distributed hundreds of books critical of the Vietnamese invasion in 1979 during Khmer Krom protests earlier this month.

“This is the history to share with Cambodians to know the real history, because today [they learn] the fake one,” Dara said yesterday, adding that he believed authorities were trying to intimidate him to keep him away from future protests.

National Police spokesman Kirth Chantharith could not be reached for comment, but Sok Bunthoeun, a monk who serves as head of pagoda discipline in Meanchey district, denied the meeting was called to warn Dara about his politics.

“This is just administrative management,” he said.

Stung Meanchey pagoda chief Thai Bunthoeun said that he knew nothing about Dara’s book distribution and said he had only been called to a meeting because the room he shared with 10 other monks had seen too many outside visitors.

“People and monks from outside come every day and we don’t know who they are,” he said. “We see that he’s the most powerful in the [room], after the room chief, so we want him to help bring order to Room 45. It’s guidance from the district monk [authorities]. We have to sort out any rooms where there is anarchy and we have done the same for Room 11.”

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rally-after-officials-call-monk-questioning

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KDC workers counterprotest

Fri, 29 August 2014

Pech Sotheary

While residents of Kampong Chhnang province’s Lorpeang village continue to push for community representatives to be released from jail, 28 workers from the politically connected KDC International company petitioned for them to be kept under lock and key and to be prosecuted.

Sin Khim, a KDC construction worker who said he received a head injury in a clash with the villagers in early July, said those who were arrested demonstrating against the firm should not be released, adding that authorities should arrest five more suspects.

“When we were building fences on the company’s land, Snguon Nhoeun [a villager arrested in a peaceful Phnom Penh march on August 12] and others used catapults, machetes and swords to shoot and slash at us, and they also burnt down our five tents, so they should not be released,” Khim said, speaking at the end of a two-day petition drive on the dispute in Phnom Penh.

“If they are released, that means our country has no laws or regulations.”

Khim said that he and the five other injured workers have filed a lawsuit against those in jail for 40 million riel ($9,864).

The workers filed their petitions on Wednesday and yesterday at the Ministry of Justice, the prime minister’s cabinet, the National Assembly, and the Senate, and various local and international NGOs and Radio Free Asia accepted it.

Am Sam Ath, technical supervisor with rights group Licadho, welcomed the petition, saying it would be considered, but cautioned that petitions should not be filed under the inducement of rich and powerful people. He added that “the government and the authorities involved have to resolve the land dispute in Lorpeang”.

KDC is owned by Chea Kheng, wife of Minister of Mines and Energy Suy Sem.

It’s workers launched their petition while about 60 villagers from Lorpeang and other areas are in Phnom Penh to file their own petition asking for the release of five villagers and for their charges to be dismissed, along with the prompt resolution of the land dispute, which has festered for years.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/kdc-workers-counterprotest