With a half-blind controlling power, Cambodia couldn't see what's wrong with its human rights record

Cambodia rejects U.S. human rights assessment

PHNOM PENH, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia has dismissed a U.S. report on the country's human rights record, saying that the annual report to the U.S. congress entirely contradicts the true reality in the country, the Cambodia Daily newspaper reported Friday.

The Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement in response of the U.S. report, saying "we have found that many of the accusations contained in this report do not even exist or are simply over exaggerated."

"We certainly recognize that human rights in Cambodia are not perfect. But is there any perfect human rights situation anywhere in the world?" the statement said, adding that the report relied too heavily on the views of anti-government NGOs (Non-Government Organizations) and appeared timed to coincide with the national election.

Cambodia fully does not believe that the country will ever receive a good mark unless the Cambodian government has "affectionate" relations with the United States, the statement said.

The annual report, release by the U.S. State Department on Wednesday, said an array of human rights guarantees were lacking in Cambodia and that the country's human rights record "remained poor."

Dr Lao Mong Hay: Cambodia must stop killing the messenger

Commentary: Cambodia must stop killing the messenger

HONG KONG, Jun. 27
LAO MONG HAY

Column: Rule by Fear
Posted at UPI Asia Online

The Cambodian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council launched an unprecedented and unwarranted attack on U.N. special representative of the secretary-general for human rights in Cambodia, Prof. Yash Ghai, during a session of the UNHRC on June 12 in Geneva. The delegation attempted to dismiss Ghai's report to the international community, claiming that it focused solely on negative aspects.

The Cambodian delegation, however, did not deny the veracity of the report. This attack should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to circumvent the important, if embarrassing, content of the report and to renege on the country's obligations to promote and protect human rights.

At the end of the discussion on Cambodia, the country's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Chheang Vun, stated that Cambodia no longer accepted Ghai's mandate in the country and called on the UNHRC to review the special representative's nomination to this position. In doing so, Cambodia has effectively signaled that it will no longer cooperate with this important U.N. mechanism that was initiated to further respect for human rights and the rebuilding of the country as a whole, a mechanism which was created as the result of international consensus under the Paris Peace Agreements of 1991 that ended the war in Cambodia.

The government's reaction has raised a lot of concern, as the U.N. special representative's report contains many crucial elements that would permit Cambodia to move toward the effective protection and enjoyment of human rights. Yash Ghai is being targeted, not because of any actual bias or selectivity in his work -- he mentioned several positive developments, including the March 2007 ratification of the optional protocol to the U.N. Convention against Torture, more peaceful local elections held in April, the adoption of a new code of criminal procedure -- but rather because he has focused on the inconvenient reality of human rights in the country.

Among the main barriers to human rights highlighted in the U.N. special representative's report are the lack of an independent judiciary, political repression and detentions, a lack of progress concerning legal reforms, land-grabbing and forced evictions, corruption, the lack of freedom of speech, violations of indigenous peoples' land rights and impunity. All of these issues are central themes that concerned local and international organizations repeatedly have raised and are the key hurdles facing the country at the present time.

The Cambodian government's stance is unacceptable and presages a further degradation of human rights in the country. If the government is now unwilling even to cooperate with the international community's human rights envoy, it is likely that it will also increasingly clamp down on local activists working in favor of human rights and dealing with the crucial issues raised by the special representative. This may also pave the way for future attacks on the work of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia. Given Cambodia's horrendous past, from which it is still struggling to emerge, any such signs of increasing authoritarianism and rejection of human rights and international cooperation must be taken very seriously.

The Cambodian government must halt this policy of personal attacks and non-cooperation and instead must engage in dialogue with the U.N. special representative in order to address the significant human rights problems that plague the country. Countries bound by human rights obligations towards the Cambodian people under the Paris Peace Agreements as well as donors, which include Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, must work with the Cambodian government to ensure that this government abandons its current stance and begins to address the country's pressing human rights issues in good faith, notably by implementing without fail all recommendations made by the special representative. All these countries and the Cambodian government must also ensure the independence of the judiciary, notably by severing judges' political party affiliations and ensuring the independence of and accessibility to the Supreme Council of the Magistracy, which is responsible for the nomination and discipline of judges, access to justice, an end to land-grabbing and forced evictions and progress in other needed legal and judicial reforms.

--
(Lao Mong Hay is currently a senior researcher at the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong. He was previously director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto in 2003. In 1997, he received an award from Human Rights Watch and the Nansen Medal in 2000 from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.)

The state of Cambodia's Human Rights - An Amnesty International Report for 2007

Sambok Chab eviction

Amnesty International

CAMBODIA - KINGDOM OF CAMBODIA
Head of state: King Norodom Sihamoni
Head of government: Hun Sen
Death penalty: abolitionist for all crimes
International Criminal Court: ratified

The land crisis continued unabated; over 10,000 urban poor were forcibly evicted from their homes and thousands of rural dwellers lost their lands and livelihoods in land disputes. The authorities continued to use the courts in an effort to curtail peaceful criticism. Restrictions on freedom of assembly were maintained.

Background

A government-led crackdown on peaceful critics ended in February with a deal between the Prime Minister and some adversaries, leading to the release of several prisoners of conscience, among them opposition parliamentarian Cheam Channy. The opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, returned from exile after he received a royal pardon.

The government's junior coalition partner, the National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC), faced crisis as Prime Minister Hun Sen of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) stepped up pressure against party president Prince Norodom Ranariddh and his followers. Some 75 senior FUNCINPEC officials were dismissed from the government and the National Assembly, culminating in an extraordinary FUNCINPEC congress on 18 October in which Keo Puth Raksmey became the new party president. In November Prince Ranariddh launched the Norodom Ranariddh Party by joining and taking the lead of the small ultra-nationalist Khmer Front Party.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights visited Cambodia in May and concluded that the strengthening of the judicial branch of governance was crucially important for the consolidation of democracy under the rule of law.

Land and housing

Land concessions and other opaque land deals between business interests and the authorities continued. In a series of forced evictions in June and July around 10,000 urban poor in Phnom Penh lost their homes to well-connected businessmen without adequate consultation, compensation or legal protection.

• At dawn on 6 June several hundred security officials armed with rifles, tear gas and electric batons began the forced eviction of Sambok Chab village in central Phnom Penh. Around 5,000 villagers were forced into vans and taken to a relocation site some 20 kilometres from the city centre, an area which lacked clean water, electricity, health clinics and schools. The lack of basic amenities at the relocation site led to increased prevalence of diarrhoea, skin infections, malnutrition and respiratory infections, particularly among children and the elderly.

The forced eviction impoverished an already poor community by depriving them of their land and livelihoods. It took place despite the call two weeks earlier by the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing and the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative on human rights defenders for an end to the evictions and immediate action to ensure that these families had access to adequate housing consistent with Cambodia's human rights obligations.

On 29 June, armed forces began the forcible eviction of 168 families living next to Phnom Penh's Preah Monivong Hospital. Houses were demolished and the residents, some of whom had lived on the land since 1988, were resettled some 30km from the city without basic facilities.

In both instances police cordoned off the area of eviction, preventing journalists and human rights workers from monitoring events.

Local human rights defenders were targeted by law enforcement agencies in connection with forced evictions and land disputes both in urban and rural areas. At least 15 land rights activists were detained during the year.

Legal system

Long-awaited reform including laws governing the judiciary and criminal justice system did not take place. The anti-corruption law, which had been set as a top priority in the concluding statement of the annual donors' meeting in March, was not passed. Instead a new anti-corruption body under the powerful Council of Ministers was established by the government in August, comprising senior officials of the ruling party.

A Law on the Status of Parliamentarians was passed in August, which limits freedom of expression for parliamentarians. An anti-adultery law imposing custodial sentences was voted through the following month, and a law introducing compulsory military service - in sharp contrast to government pledges to reduce the armed forces - was passed by the National Assembly in October.

In his address to the UN Human Rights Council on 26 September, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for human rights in Cambodia said that the government had used prosecutors and judges, while pretending to uphold their independence, to intimidate or punish critics. He stated that the government had applied the law selectively and that its supporters had enjoyed immunities from the civil and criminal process for blatant breaches of the law.

• Born Samnang and Sok Samoeun, who were sentenced in August 2005 to 20 years' imprisonment for the murder of trade union leader Chea Vichea following an unfair trial, remained in prison. After significant domestic and international pressure calling for their release following testimony from a new witness, an appeals hearing was announced for 6 October. As one of the judges did not appear in court the hearing was postponed.

Freedom of speech and assembly

The widely used and controversial criminal defamation law was reformed in May, with the custodial sentence removed. Several high-profile cases were suspended. Subsequently the law against disinformation, which has a maximum prison sentence of three years, was used in a number of cases to silence or intimidate critics, including several journalists.

• Death threats were received by two local journalists, Soy Sopheap of the CTN television channel and You Saravuth of Sralanh Khmer newspaper, after they reported alleged corruption by military and government-linked individuals. You Saravuth was forced to flee abroad.

Restrictions introduced in early 2003 on the right to assembly continued. Requests for permission to hold demonstrations were regularly refused by the authorities, while demonstrations and protests were often broken up by force.

The Extraordinary Chambers

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia were established on the outskirts of Phnom Penh to prosecute suspected perpetrators of gross human rights violations during the Khmer Rouge period (1975-1979). Due to disagreements between national and international judges, a plenary session of the Chambers failed to adopt the tribunal's internal rules which are required to launch investigations and prosecutions. There was renewed criticism of the lack of transparency in the recruitment of Cambodian judges; some were on the ruling party's central committee and others lacked basic legal training.

Former Khmer Rouge leader Ta Mok, one of two detainees scheduled to face prosecution by the Extraordinary Chambers, died on 21 July, never having been tried for his alleged role in crimes against humanity.