Women's Rights Champions Gather in Washington DC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDchxcwgTiE&feature=player_embedded

Talking to the Obama Administration

Mu Sochua speaking with Under-Secretary for Under-Secretary for Public Diplomacy Judith McHale

Source: Vital Voices

Former Cambodian Minister of Women’s Affairs Mu Sochua met with a senior U.S. official this morning at a gathering of international women leaders in Washington, DC. She asked Under-Secretary for Public Diplomacy Judith McHale how the U.S. nurtures grassroots movements, especially in reaction to the revolutions in the Middle East. Under-Secretary McHale said, “I took this job because I felt our government was not communicating to people in the marketplace. The world has changed and people have an expectation to be part of the dialogue.” She added that the U.S. government was using new social media, especially Twitter, to understand what issues are most important to people on the ground.

“We have to strengthen those ties. Before, if you were not part of the economic or political life of your country, we would miss you. But now we are listening and we are learning. We have to have a conversation with people at every level of society.” The Vital Voices Global Leadership Network Retreat gathers women parliamentarians, activists and leaders from countries all around the world for a two day retreat to share ideas, stories and strategies towards the promotion of women and their rights.

Speaking privately with Under-Secretary McHale, Sochua expressed the dissatisfaction of many Cambodians with their lives. She emphasized the struggles of farmers, union workers, and trade workers. She urged the Under-Secretary to continue her efforts to engage with the people's movement on the ground.

Cambodia’s Leading Opposition Leader Mu Sochua Visits Washington, DC

Contact: Emily Sherman
emily@devinemulvey.com
Tel: 202.337.9600

CAMBODIA’S LEADING OPPOSITION LEADER

MU SOCHUA VISITS WASHINGTON, DC

Leading human rights voice visits Lawmakers April 12-14

April 4, 2011

Human Rights advocate Mu Sochua (center in pink shirt)

Washington, DC -- Nobel Peace Prize nominee and human rights advocate Mu Sochua visits Washington, DC, this month to discuss sex slavery, human rights, and her continued fight against injustice and corruption in Cambodia.

Mu Sochua made headlines around the world in 2009 by standing up to Cambodia’s powerful Prime Minister after he publicly insulted her with degrading language. Facing jail time, Mu’s open letter, “As I walk to prison”, provoked an outcry from the international community. Mu was found guilty by the courts, which are known to be a political tool of the ruling party. By court order, Mu’s salary was deducted and her parliamentary immunity is still pending.

Considered one of the most courageous leaders in her country, Mu Sochua has been called “Cambodia’s fearless heroine” by The Daily Beast and a “passionate fighter for girls and women” by Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine.

With trials against Khmer Rouge officials accused of genocide from the 1970’s finally underway, Mu Sochua can talk about the pain of losing her parents to the bloodshed, the need for justice, and the hope that freedom and transparency can bring to her country’s fledgling democracy.

Mu Sochua was featured in the HBO film “REDLIGHT”, narrated by actress Lucy Liu, that tells the stories of young Cambodian girls sold into brothels. Mu Sochua has helped mobilize over 12,000 women candidates to run in commune elections. Over 900 women were elected, ushering in a new generation of women leaders. Mu Sochua has the support of her party to include 450 women candidates in winning positions for the 2012 local elections.

Mu Sochua is the recipient of the Vital Voices' Human Rights Global Leadership Award, presented by Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Mu Sochua will be meeting with members of Congress and attending the Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards at the Kennedy Center.

For more information or to arrange an interview please contact Emily Sherman.

Fined Opposition Lawmaker Leaves for US [-Khieu Kanharith must have one too many whisky again?]

Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Friday, 18 June 2010

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said Mu Sochua was likely fleeing potential arrest by the courts. “To meet Obama is not easy,” he said.

Opposition lawmaker Mu Sochua, who is facing court action in a suit brought by the prime minister, left for the US on Friday, claiming she wants to screen a film on human trafficking and deliver a petition to the US president.

A government spokesman said she was more likely fleeing court-mandated fines after being found guilty of defamation.

Mu Sochua, who lost an appeal at the Supreme Court earlier this month in a defamation suit brought by Prime Minister Hun Sen, has said she will not pay $4,500 in fines and compensation.

Her court battle with Hun Sen comes at a time when Cambodia’s courts are facing mounting pressure to reform. Earlier this week, the UN envoy for human rights, Surya Subedi, said he did not have faith in the courts’ ability to provide justice to Cambodians.

Subedi referred specifically to the case of Mu Sochua, who was sued by Hun Sen last year after she brought a suit against him alleging he had defamed her with sexist and degrading statements in a series of public speeches.

Prior to her departure, Mu Sochua, a lawmaker for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, distributed a petition through the Internet censuring the Supreme Court’s June 2 decision, which upheld defamation charges against her.

“She will submit the petition to US President Barack Obama,” Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Ho Vann said Friday.

Mu Sochua, who is a former minister of women’s affairs, plans to stay through June 25, to submit her petition to the administration and to take part in the screening of a documentary on human trafficking that she helped produce.

The film, “Red Light,” travels to Cambodia’s brothels and victim centers to underscore the need to eliminate trafficking.

“It is to show the pain of Khmer children,” Mu Sochua told reporters at Phnom Penh International Airport prior to her departure Friday.

Human trafficking is a product of “inaction of the government and of poverty,” she said. “So this is to inform the government about the pain and about its responsibility in finding the criminals.”

Ministry of Interior spokesman Khieu Sopheak said Mu Sochua’s film would not have an effect on the government’s anti-trafficking efforts, which he said are already underway. The US took Cambodia off a “watch list” of countries not doing enough to fight trafficking earlier this month.

Mu Sochua’s departure also came as court officials moved to collect the fines from her.

Chiv Keng, head judge at Phnom Penh Municipal Court, said Mu Sochua would be “forced to pay.”

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said Mu Sochua was likely fleeing potential arrest by the courts. “To meet Obama is not easy,” he said.

Seeking Backup: Mu Sochua to petition US president

Mu Sochua (C) (Photo: P. Skoczkowski)

Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Vong Sokheng
The Phnom Penh Post

Opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) lawmaker Mu Sochua plans to leave for the US on Thursday bearing a petition for President Barack Obama, who she hopes will condemn the Cambodian government for using the courts as a tool to silence critics. She said Tuesday that she planned to submit the petition to “someone close” to Obama, though she declined to elaborate. Launched Thursday, the petition had collected about 1,300 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon, she said. “I think President Obama is a glorious man who protects human rights and justice,” she said. “Therefore, I will ask him to condemn individual politicians who use the courts as a political tool to silence members of the opposition parties.”

Mu Sochua to visit the US and the Philippines

(Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

16 June 2010
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

SRP MP Mu Sochua, who is under pressure by Hun Xen’s lawyer to pay her fine imposed by the Phnom Penh municipal court, plans to travel to the US and the Philippines on 17 June. According to plan, Mrs. Mu Sochua will travel to the US and the Philippines between 17 June and 01 July. Mrs. Mu Sochua indicated that her travel is not aimed at fleeing the court order for her to pay a 16.5 million riels fine. She said that she will go to the US for the projection of a documentary film on women and children trafficking in New York City, then, she will return back to Cambodia. She indicated also that, up to today, she did not receive any court order asking her to pay the fine yet.

Mu Sochua: You Can’t Fight Injustice Halfway

September 17, 2009
By Iris Garcia
Global Fund for Women

Former Global Fund Board Member and Cambodian human rights activist Mu Sochua pulls no punches. At an event this Monday at her alma mater, UC Berkeley, she began her talk by posing a rhetorical question: “Should we compromise in the fight for justice?” Sochua faces extreme pressure and legal punishment from her government back home for speaking out against the ruling party’s intimidation tactics and corrupt practices.

Cambodia in Crisis: Missed Opportunities and Misdirected Aid

In her talk, Sochua strongly emphasized the dire human rights situation in Cambodia: over 4,000 women in Cambodia die each year from child birth; over half of its children cannot attend or drop out of primary school due to poverty or family illness; 250,000 people have been forcibly evicted from their land in the past six years; only 30 percent of forests remain intact; and just 30 percent of the population has access to safe drinking water.

Sochua also drew attention to the flow of international aid: USAID spent over $53 million on assistance to Cambodia in 2008. That same year, Cambodia received $687 million in foreign aid from donors like the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the European Union – almost half the government’s annual budget. However, corruption and lack of accountability means very little of the money reaches its people. Cambodian Women particularly experience the brunt of economic marginalization – as they are highly vulnerable to forced trafficking for sex and labor.

Activists working to reverse the situation face serious challenges: Sochua spoke of the difficulty in translating social justice concepts and vocabulary into Khmer, the official language of Cambodia. There is no Khmer word for accountability and “opposition” is translated as “destroyer.” Sochua discussed her campaign to explain the concepts of politics and rights at the grassroots level with village women.

She says any agenda for long-term social change requires political will. In her own commitment to political activism, Sochua points to the need to link human rights and social welfare to politics as an empowerment strategy of empowerment. She uses domestic violence as an example: social welfare alone can help individuals heal, but for real change, domestic violence must become a political issue.

A New U.S. Commitment?

At a recent US Congressional hearing on the human rights situation in Cambodia, Sochua met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and made two requests: first to bring her home safely [as a Member of Parliament stripped of immunity by the ruling party, she is facing significant jail time]; and second, to tie US aid to human rights: “We cannot accept democracy fed to us by the teaspoon, we want full democracy.”

Clinton and members of Congress pledged that persecution of any of the three witnesses at the hearing could put US aid at risk. Sochua asked her US supporters to hold their Congresspersons to that commitment.

Listening to Sochua, it was alarming to learn how the Cambodian government is trying to systematically undermine her: in highlighting appearance before the U.S. Congress, Sochua was referred to as a “traitor” by a government spokesperson. The sentence for treason in Cambodia is 20 years to life in prison.

Take Action!

A woman of action, Sochua also shared some useful ways we can advance human rights and democracy in Cambodia:

• US supporters can write to their Representatives demanding that they follow through with withholding aid if Sochua is arrested upon her return to Cambodia
• Send a letter to Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of Cambodia, to let him know that the world is watching. Contact the Cambodian Consulate in the US for information on how you can send this correspondence.

As someone who believes that women’s movements are the best agents of social change, Sochua’s words resonated with me strongly. Global Fund’s own grantmaking in Cambodia reflects the reality that women are at the forefront of social change and defense of human rights. To date we have directly supported 27 women’s groups in Cambodia with over $900,000 in grants. Groups are working on issues such as gender-based violence, trafficking and women’s political participation through various strategies including individual skill building and raising gender and human rights awareness.

Her talk made me realize that even someone like Mu Sochua, who has access to political power and global solidarity, can experiences enormous patriarchal backlash for her activism.

It reminds us that women’s movements have a lot of work ahead in establishing a peaceful and just democracy with respect for women’s human rights. Sochua is a committed human rights defender who is literally putting her life on the line when she says: “You can’t go halfway, there is no compromise in the fight against injustice.“

Other Resources:

• Find out about other Bay area events where Mu Sochua is speaking.
• Listen to a radio interview with Mu Sochua conducted by Preeti Shekar, Pacifica radio producer and member of the Global Fund communications team.
• Read the UC Berkeley News Center report on Sochua’s talk
• Fighting Cambodia’s Goliath: Mu Sochua –by UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare

Iris Garcia is part of the Program Team at the Global Fund for Women

Meet SRP MP Mu Sochua in Stockton on 19 Sept 2009 and San Jose on 20 Sept 2009

Click on each announcement to zoom in

CPP mouthpieces mounting virulent attacks against SRP MP Mu Sochua: Is the CPP nervous?

CPP mouthpieces: Cheam Yeap (L) and Phay Siphan (R)

Mu Sochua inflates the truth in the US –sic!–

Friday, September 04, 2009
DAP news
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Mrs. Mu Sochua, SRP deputy-Secretary general and Kampot MP from the SRP opposition party who lost the defamation lawsuit against PM Samdach Akkok Moha Xena Bat Dey Dek Cho Hun Xen in a verdict rendered by the Phnom Penh municipal court in the past, is currently creating a tempest to gather her supporters by yelling that the Cambodian court decision handed to her is an injustice.

Since she turned over her appeal to the Appeal Court, Mrs. Mu Sochua left to the USA, and up to now and until the near future, she has organized meeting and dancing events in various US states [KI-Media note: In fact, these events are organized by the US branch of the SRP]. During these occasions, she plans to provide information and comments to the participants on what she believes as being injustice in the defamation lawsuit and the decision to lift the parliamentary immunity of the two opposition MPs, i.e. those of Mrs. Mu Sochua and Phnom Penh MP Ho Vann.

Cheam Yeap, chairman of the National Assembly finance committee, told DAP news over the phone, on Friday afternoon that it is her right to organize the events above, but that these rights must be done according to the law [KI-Media note: Since when must events organized in the US abide by the Cambodian law?].

Cheam Yeap said: “She indicated that the court belongs to Samdach PM Hun Xen, but the samdach did not participate in it, and such statement is like the Cambodian old saying: ‘Ropis day, Chang-rai khluon’ (Fidgety hands bring in bad luck to oneself).”

Cheam Yeap added that such action is taken to ask for pity, but for him, he has no pity towards her whatsoever: “If the two of them were soldiers, they would surely be dead from bullets already.”

Cheam Yeap, the CPP Prey Veng province MP, indicated that Mrs. Mu Sochua’s action makes it such that the CPP can no longer tolerate, and in particular, what Hun Xen did in the past, it was all according to the law. For example, the immunity lifting of Mrs. Mu Sochua and Mr. Ho Vann was done based on the request of the ministry of Justice only, in order to open the way for the court to question her.

Phay Siphan, spokesman of the Cambodian Council of Ministers, is also of the same opinion as CPP Cheam Yeap, He said that this is Mrs. Mu Sochua’s right, and the right of those who will joint these events only. However, he claimed that the participants to the events will have the opportunity to find the truth and they will also hear the reply back from the Phnom Penh regime also.

Phay Siphan told DAP news that: “For the losers, they always yell that it is injustice, but the action taken by Mrs. Mu Sochua is a behavior that wants [to see] all Cambodians disobeying the law, disobeying the court, in particular, disobeying the National Assembly which represents the people’s will.”

Phay Siphan said that Mrs. Mu Sochua should display dignity by abiding the law of Cambodia, because this is her share of her political life.

In the invitation letter sent out by Mrs. Mu Sochua, it is stated: “The two MPs, Mrs. Mu Sochua and Mr. Ho Vann, saw their parliamentary immunity lifted by Hun Xen’s National Assembly, and Hun Xen’s tribunal unfairly sentenced them to lose in these defamation lawsuits.”

The invitation letter to meet Mrs. Mu Sochua also stated and boasted about her courage, and that she is a Cambodian woman who dares to stand up against injustice in Cambodia, in spite of the government’s threats.

A majority of people [KI-Media note: how did DAP knows that there is a majority of people? Unless it is inflating the truth] criticized that, just to meet with the two MPs, people will have to pay $25. On the issue above, DAP could not obtain any comment from the SRP, in particular from Mr. Yim Sovann, the SRP spokesman.

It should be noted that Mrs. Mu Sochua was summoned for mid-September by the Phnom Penh Appeal court for questioning related to the lawsuit brought up by PM Hun Xen, but she asked for a delay.

Regarding the actual timing of the summon, DAP could not obtain the comment from Mr. Kar Savuth, the Appeal Court judge. When he heard over the phone that we are from DAP news, he immediately turned off his phone and did not say anything.

Appeal court delay Mu Sochua’s appeal case

19 August 2009
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Yesterday, the Appeal court did not hold its hearing in the lawsuit case against SRP MP Mu Sochua in which the Phnom Penh municipal court made her lose the case against Hun Xen. The reason for the hearing delay was due to the fact that Mrs. Mu Sochua is not currently in Cambodia. Yim Sovann, SRP spokesman, said on Tuesday that the Appeal Court seems to delay the hearing as requested by Mrs. Mu Sochua who is currently visiting the US. Ouk Savuth, the deputy prosecutor of the Appeal court, summoned Mrs. Mu Sochua to come to the Appeal court on Tuesday regarding her appeal on the decision handed down by the Phnom Penh municipal court, in which she lost the case to Hun Xen and she was ordered to pay 16.5 million riels ($4,150) in fine. Yim Sovann said that he does not know when Mrs. Mu Sochua will return back to Cambodia.