Manet Met by Protests, CPP Livid

Despite denials from the opposition party, the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) intimated yesterday that a protest in Australia against a visit by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s son was tacitly organized by the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), again ratcheting up tensions in the political scene after a relative lull in the war of words between both parties. About 150 demonstrators in Melbourne – led by firebrand Cambodian-Australian politician Hong Lim – protested on Friday in front of a restaurant where Hun Manet, Mr. Hun Sen’s eldest son and a lieutenant general in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, was meeting local CPP supporters.
 

The protesters held banners calling for improved human rights in Cambodia and the release of more information about the death of political analyst Kem Ley. Demonstrators also demanded the government release opposition activists and human rights workers now in prison. Mr. Manet, in a Facebook post later in the day, said the protests had little effect on him and did not stop him from attending his meeting.
 

But in a press release sent out the next day, the CPP slammed Mr. Lim, a Cambodian-Australian politician from the state of Victoria, and the protesters with him, saying the group had no right to express opinions about Cambodia and did not represent the “real” voice of Cambodians. Mr. Lim was banned from Cambodia in August after refusing to apologize for calling the government a “beast” and criticizing it over the investigation into Mr. Ley’s murder.

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