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Amid Turmoil, EU Calls for Review of Aid To Cambodia
The European Parliament on Thursday passed a resolution accusing the Cambodian government of laying politically motivated charges against the opposition and calling for aid cuts if its respect for human rights fails to improve—a loud echo of a resolution it passed just six months ago. Passed by a show of hands during a plenary session in Strasbourg, France, the resolution holds up the $465 million in aid committed to Cambodia through 2020 and urges the European Commission to make “financial assistance dependant on improvements in the human rights situation.”
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More Money Needed to Probe Thumbprints
A senior Interior Ministry official tasked with investigating the 170,000 thumbprints submitted in support of a CNRP petition to the king said on Thursday he had received samples of the prints but would be unable to proceed with his work without more money. Prime Minister Hun Sen last week asked the Interior Ministry to assess whether the opposition party had forged some of the prints to bolster numbers on a petition calling for King Norodom Sihamoni’s intervention to end months of repression against government critics.
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CPP Takes Advantage of CNRP’s No-Show
What was meant to be a victory in the CNRP’s campaign to assert the National Assembly’s sovereignty from the executive ended up being a field day for the ruling CPP, as the opposition’s lawmakers on Thursday boycotted the questioning of Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana. The CNRP has long called for government ministers to appear on the floor of the Assembly to be grilled but had been rebuffed until officials earlier this week summoned Mr. Vong Vathana to appear over a range of issues including offshore holdings revealed in the “Panama Papers.”
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COMMUNES, VILLAGES ADDED TO PHNOM PENH
Nine communes and 44 villages will be included in Phnom Penh district in an effort to increase the effectiveness of the city’s public administration, according to a Facebook post by city governor Pa Socheatevong. “For the purpose of strengthening the effectiveness of public service management and delivering to the people at district, commune and village level, the Phnom Penh administration requests the principle from the government to create nine more communes and 44 more villages,” Mr. Socheatevong said.
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NEC sets voter registration dates
After multiple delays, the National Election Committee yesterday released its schedule for voter registration, giving itself three months to register the close to 9.6 million eligible voters across the country. The nationwide registration process is set to begin on September 1, a little later than the mid-August date announced in early May, and end on November 29, with the final list scheduled to be released next February, a few months shy of the 2017 commune elections.
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NGOS APPEAL TO GOVERNMENT
Forty-one international NGOs signed a joint letter to the government this week, appealing for the promotion, protection and respect for human rights and the fundamental freedoms of the Cambodian people in light of what they called harassment by the judiciary and armed forces. “Recent events...lead us to believe that a number of civil society organizations that promote accountability and transparency have been considered by the government as a threat to the stability of Cambodia,” the appeal, dated Wednesday and submitted to Foreign Minister Prak Sokhon says, and adds that those organizations are vital to the growth and prosperity of the Kingdom.
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Ban Ki-moon Calls Foreign Minister With Concerns
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon telephoned Foreign Affairs Minister Prak Sokhonn directly this week to raise his concerns about the government’s arrests and “harassment” of opposition lawmakers and others.
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Accused killer changes story
The publisher of a small newspaper claimed during a hearing at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday that he was forced to confess to a premeditated murder charge. The accused, Som Kimsean, 38, who publishes the newspaper Sovann Nokor, was arrested in May last year after the body of Srun Sopheak was found dumped in the capital’s Sen Sok district. Two other men implicated in the crime are still on the run.
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Talks over garment factory’s closure bear no fruit
The Ministry of Labour met with Malaysian-owned Global Apparels Limited factory representatives, union officials and workers yesterday, to negotiate an agreement for compensation as the company closes down. Earlier this month about 600 employees were terminated by the Phnom Penh factory, which is due to shut down in October.
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Duch describes torture, consequences at S-21
A motley collection of instruments were used to torture prisoners to extract confessions and unravel dubious CIA connections during the Khmer Rouge regime, the former head of the infamous S-21 prison told the Khmer Rouge tribunal yesterday. Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his alias Duch, delved into the intricacies of torture methods used by interrogators at S-21 – and the consequences for those who overdid it.
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MINISTER: HANDS-OFF JUDICIARY
Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana has never interfered in a judicial decision, he said during a speech in front of a half-vacant National Assembly yesterday. The entire Cambodian National Rescue Party’s (CNRP) parliamentary representation is now boycotting the National Assembly after repeated attempts were made to arrest their acting party leader, Kem Sokha, over the past few weeks. Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana has never interfered in a judicial decision, he said during a speech in front of a half-vacant National Assembly yesterday. The entire Cambodian National Rescue Party’s (CNRP) parliamentary representation is now boycotting the National Assembly after repeated attempts were made to arrest their acting party leader, Kem Sokha, over the past few weeks.
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WORKERS WANT MINISTER’S HELP
More than 500 workers from the Malaysian-owned Global Apparel Limited garment factory marched from the factory headquarters in Por Senchey district to the Ministry of Labor again yesterday, asking for intervention from the ministry in their dispute with the company. On May 30, the company said it would be shutting down the Global Apparel Limited factory at the end of October and would not be renewing any worker contracts ending between May and October.
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CPP REJECTS TALKS WITH CNRP
The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) yesterday asked officials at the National Assembly to arrange talks with the ruling Cambodian’s People Party (CPP) to kick-start the “culture of dialogue” again. But their request was rejected by the ruling party, who through a spokesman said a formal letter of request had to be submitted before any talks could be considered.
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Local chief back in hot water over excavation
The chief of a commune in Kandal province’s Muk Kampoul district is in trouble over illegal dredging activities for the second time in less than a month, with the Kandal Fisheries Administration on Monday seizing 13 trucks that were removing dirt from the bottom of Chunnlen Lake without authorisation. Russey Chroy commune chief Um Chhong Sreng was previously busted on May 24 after 30 trucks were discovered full of dirt from the lake.
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ENVIRONMENT FOCUS FOR UNDP
Monday’s World Environment Day was recognized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) when the organization’s headquarters in Cambodia issued a press release outlining the importance of environmental protection in the Kingdom. “To attain environmental sustainability and sustain Cambodia’s path to development, it is therefore more than timely that the government has recently decided to initiate an environmental governance reform,” said the press release.
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‘Political prisoners’ partitioned in Prey Sar
A new set of security measures at Prey Sar prison, designed to stop rampant drug use at the facility, is instead being selectively applied to prisoners being held in a politically sensitive case related to an ongoing sex scandal involving opposition leader Kem Sokha. Prison authorities have used glass partitions in the visiting area to keep Yi Soksan and Nay Vanda – jailed human rights workers from Adhoc – from having physical contact with their loved ones, the detainees’ families have said, while visitors to other inmates said they had been able to interact freely with those they had come to see.
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Borei Keila evictees seek more compensation
Ten former Borei Keila residents who were relocated to a site in Kandal province’s Ponhea Leu district known as Phnom Bat filed a petition with the Ministry of Land Management yesterday requesting they either be given $5,000 and moved back to Phnom Penh or be given $10,000 in additional compensation. The 10 were among 110 families moved to Phnom Bat in 2012 following a violent eviction that made way for development by Phan Imex. At the time, the company had promised them land, equipment, food and compensation.
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Kampong Speu officers tagged as smugglers
A conservation NGO has accused a soldier and a military police officer of being personally involved in illegal timber-smuggling rings in Kampong Speu, one of the provinces military police announced would be scrutinised during an internal corruption investigation. Natural Resources and Wildlife Preservation Organization director Chea Hean said yesterday that the two rings operated at least five heavy trucks, as of last Friday, transporting illegal wood to Vietnam.
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Opposition, civil society want ‘chaos’, Remy says
The head of the government’s Cambodian Human Rights Committee yesterday took a recent propaganda drive on the road, lecturing students at the Cambodia-Japan Cooperation Center (CJCC) about the danger posed by the opposition party and some NGOs. In recent weeks, the body, led by its recently appointed president Keo Remy, has released a series of video clips extolling the government’s rights record and casting the opposition and civil society as threats to Cambodia’s peace and stability.
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Duch again implicates Chea in KRT testimony
The former chief of the notorious S-21 prison yesterday told of how he swapped painkillers for poison and thwarted an order from his alleged superior – Khmer Rouge tribunal defendant Nuon Chea – in an apparent bid to spare the lives of four inmates. Kaing Guek Eav, more commonly known by the nomme de guerre “Duch”, returned to the courtroom to answer questions about the Tuol Sleng prison, where more than 12,000 people were imprisoned and later executed.
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