(AFP) - Another Cambodian rights activist has been charged with defaming Prime Minister Hun Sen, as critics warned the country would become a pariah state if it continued to crush dissent.
The new defamation suit against Pa Nguon Teang was the most recent in a flurry of cases that have been internationally condemned by rights groups and donor countries as a bid to silence political opposition in the impoverished kingdom.
The United States has voiced "strong" objections to the actions by Hun Sen's administration, while both Human Rights Watch and the International Republican Institute, a US-based think tank, likened Cambodia to Myanmar, where the military-ruled government routinely silences its opponents.
Alexander Sutton, Cambodia's country director for the institute, said Thursday that Cambodia is facing future isolation as it continued to jail critics.
"This is not just the step backward to democracy, it's a leap and bound backward for democracy in the country," he said.
"This is very serious problem and it reached the critical mass with the jailing of Kem Sokha, Yeng Virak and now Teang," he said, referring to the weekend arrest of two other rights leaders, also on defamation charges
Pa Nguon Teang, acting director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, was arrest at midday of Wednesday near the border with Laos.
His arrest comes five days after the center's director Kem Sokha was arrested on defamation charges in the capital Phnom Penh.
"The court has charged my client with defaming and insulting," Pa Nguon Teang's lawyer Som Chandyna told reporters at Phnom Penh Municipal Court where the activist was questioned for more than two hours Thursday morning.
He said Pa Nguon Teang was sent to Prey Sar prison pending trial. The charges against both him and Kem Sokha stem from a banner the center erected during Human Rights Day celebrations on December 10 that allegedly accused Hun Sen of being a communist who sold Cambodian territory to the Vietnamese.
Nearly a dozen people, including opposition leader Sam Rainsy, have been charged with or convicted of defamation in what rights groups say is a government bid to dismantle opposition by using the courts to attack opponents.
In response to the heavy condemnation both at home and abroad, the Cambodian government has repeatedly denied that is using the judiciary to enforce its agenda.
2 comments:
This is what we call Khmer's DemocraZY.
Yes, I think that Samdech Hun Sen is doing the right things in order to bring about the real democracy in Cambodia what we call check and balance. Without this, Samdech Hun Sen can't see it because he has only ONE EYE.
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