Cambodia is mimicking Myanmar’s repressive tactics with its arrest of two prominent rights leaders, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday, joining a chorus of international criticism over a flurry of defamation cases in the kingdom.
Kem Sokha, head of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, was arrested on Saturday, while police also seized Yeng Virak, the director of the Community Legal Education Centre.
The arrests were the latest in nearly a dozen defamation cases brought by either the government or political party leaders in what has been condemned as a campaign to destroy critics of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s administration.
“It appears to us that Cambodia is adopting the Burmese model by jailing peaceful critics of the government,” said a Human Rights Watch representative, referring to Myanmar’s old name.
“We’re extremely alarmed by not only these recent arrests, but the whole series of events during the last year which have essentially muzzled the media, frightened civil society groups and made others engage in self-censorship,” said the representative who wished to remain anonymous.
Another rights watchdog, the Alliance for Freedom of Expression in Cambodia (Afec), also condemned the latest arrests, calling the charges “groundless and in contradiction to international human rights standards”.
Afec, which was formed in November in response to earlier defamation arrests, said on Tuesday such prosecutions should be abolished because they are easily abused by politicians seeking to attack their critics.
Government spokesperson Khieu Kanharith denied on Tuesday that the government was forcing the judiciary to make the arrests, saying that only the court could decide whether a person should be charged.
He claimed that during Human Rights Day celebrations last month Kem Sokha’s rights centre had accused the government of being “communist”. The centre is also accused of saying Hun Sen’s hands were stained with blood.
The string of defamation cases has drawn stiff criticism from the United Nations, European Union and United States, which said earlier democracy in Cambodia was deteriorating.
United States ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli, who was present during Kem Sokha’s arrest along with British ambassador David Reader and foreign rights workers, called the detentions foolish.
“We are concerned that this may be part of a broader plan to quash the opposition… it becomes more difficult to take these trappings of democracy as the real thing,” he was quoted as saying on Saturday by the English-language Cambodia Daily.
The arrests came 10 days after Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who is in exile in France, was sentenced in absentia to 18 months in prison for defaming Hun Sen and National Assembly president Prince Norodom Ranariddh.
International concern has also focused on the defamation convictions of journalist Mam Sonando and union leader Rong Chhun, both arrested for criticising a controversial border agreement with Vietnam.
At least seven people, including a cousin of King Norodom Sihamoni, have recently been arrested or charged with defamation over the agreement, which critics say cedes too much territory to Vietnam. – AFP