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UN body takes issue with stance on disabled rights
A UN spokesperson has rejected a government reading of a UN convention used to justify banning people with disabilities from performing in the streets. Phnom Penh authorities banned blind singers performing in the city’s streets last year, and last week confiscated one group’s musical equipment.
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Sokha Ignores Summons, Slams His Accusers
Kem Sokha, the acting president of the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), yesterday ignored a summons to appear at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court and instead conducted a meeting with CNRP youth at the party’s headquarters, citing his parliamentary immunity for ignoring the court. Mr. Sokha was summoned to answer questions over a defamation suit filed by former CNRP activist Thy Sovantha, who accused him of defaming her during a recorded audio allegedly between Mr. Sokha and his alleged mistress.
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Gov’t pursuit a waste of time and money, Sokha tells CNRP youth group
Besieged by a growing legal firestorm arising from an alleged affair, CNRP leader Kem Sokha yesterday ignored a summons to appear at court while calling out authorities for wasting the public’s money, resources and time to probe his personal life for political ammunition. In his first direct response to the ballooning scandal, Sokha told a gathering of 50 youth supporters at the opposition’s Phnom Penh headquarters that his personal life had long been used for political attacks.
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Prime Minister Bans Color-Coordinated Demonstrations
The potential for color to serve as a rallying point for a political insurrection has not been lost on Prime Minister Hun Sen over the years, with the premier repeatedly inveighing against Eastern European-style “color revolutions.” On Tuesday, however, he took this aversion a step further by announcing he would ban any future protests in which participants are all dressed in the same color.
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Group Demands Don Sahong Investigation
An environmental youth group has asked the National Assembly’s head of the Environment and Water Resource Commission, Pol Hom, to visit and investigate the pollution that will be caused by construction of Laos’ Don Sahong hydropower dam. A dozen young people submitted their request to the National Assembly yesterday, representatives of the youth group said.
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Hun Sen’s Bodyguards Confess to Beating of Lawmakers
Two of three bodyguards to Prime Minister Hun Sen on trial for the beating of two opposition lawmakers in front of the National Assembly last year confessed to the attack on the last day of their trial on Tuesday but refused to say who had sent them there. Chay Sarith, 33, Mao Hoeun, 34, and Suth Vanny, 45, all members of the prime minister’s personal bodyguard detail, have been charged with intentional violence and intentional property damage, both with aggravating circumstances, for their role in the attack of CNRP lawmakers Nhay Chamroeun and Kong Saphea in October.
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PM's speech offers hope to detained
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday for the first time publicly addressed the fate of four Adhoc officials and a National Election Committee member arrested last week in relation to the Kem Sokha mistress scandal, floating a possible resolution – a royal pardon. But the suggestion came with a caveat. Speaking to graduating students from Vanda Institute on Koh Pich, Hun Sen said that while he could ask the King to issue a pardon, it would not be considered if civil society groups kept pushing him while legal proceedings were ongoing. In fact, they would only succeed in making life more difficult for the jailed quintet.
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Premier Hints at Possible Pardon
The prime minister says there is a possibility he will issue pardons for the human rights activists charged in relation to opposition party acting president Kem Sokha’s alleged sex scandal after verdicts in the cases have been handed down. Speaking on Koh Pich during a ceremony yesterday, Mr. Hun Sen first warned that legal action would be taken against members of so-called color campaigns who are not authorized by law and that affect social stability.
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Protestering garment workers seek bonuses
Nearly 600 garment workers at the Wanlin Zongheng garment factory protested in front of the Labour Ministry, claiming they hadn’t been paid bonuses after the factory changed their contracts recently, according to a representative of the workers. Huy Sambath, president of Federation Union for Cambodia, said that when the factory decided to change its name from Su Tong Fang to Wanlin Zongheng, citing the new name as fortuitous, the owner promised to honour their bonus clauses in the old contracts.
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Families ask for clarity on airport plan
Representatives of 531 families potentially affected by Phnom Penh International Airport’s expansion yesterday asked the Council of Ministers to speed up resolution of the land dispute, which has languished for four years already. Representative Kong Phalla said the affected people had put together a book discussing the impact of the expansion and estimated compensation deserved, and submitted it to the Council of Ministers.
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Tension Builds Before Next ‘Black Monday’
Security forces including riot police were deployed to Phnom Penh’s Borei Keila neighborhood on Tuesday to keep a watchful eye over activists in the area, as rights groups, undeterred by arrests of eight protesters on “Black Monday,” began planning next week’s demonstration.
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Eight Arrested Over ‘Black Monday’ Protests
Eight human rights officers and activists clad in black were arrested on Monday during “Black Monday” protests in Phnom Penh, the first in a campaign to free four fellow rights workers and an election official who were jailed late last month on charges widely believed to be politically motivated. The group—arrested en route to a planned protest at Prey Sar prison, where four officials from the rights group Adhoc are incarcerated—were later released, officials said. Those arrested included two Cambodian human rights workers, two of their foreign colleagues and four local land rights activists.
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Officials Arrested on Black Monday
Two senior human rights workers and six others, including land rights activists and two foreigners, were arrested yesterday as they made their way to Prey Sar’s CC1 and CC2 prisons as part of the Black Monday campaign. They were on their way to join other protesters gathered outside the prison to call for the release of five human rights officials who were arrested last month.
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New Head of CHRC Defends Human Rights
Despite the arrest of two human rights officials yesterday and the charging of four Adhoc officials last week, Keo Remy, the newly appointed head of the Cambodia Human Rights Committee (CHRC), declared that human rights in the Kingdom are progressing. Mr. Remy, a secretary of state to the Council of Ministers, made the comments at his first press conference since taking office at the committee yesterday, stating that if rights workers broke the law then they must answer for it.
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Rights official alludes to shuttering NGOs
The newly appointed head of the Cambodian Human Rights Committee, Keo Remy, has threatened to use the controversial NGO law (LANGO) to shut down groups that continue to instigate “chaos” and “violence”. Remy, who was appointed to the government body last week, in a press conference yesterday accused “some” NGOs of pushing the Kingdom towards civil war by trying to “topple the government” under “the umbrella of human rights”.
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Yentieng warns Sokha ignoring summons is 'real crime'
ACU chief Om Yentieng yesterday threw down the gauntlet to Kem Sokha, warning the opposition leader he would commit a “real crime” if he failed to turn up to court for questioning on Wednesday, and suggested he go to see whether his parliamentary immunity was respected. Yentieng, a close confidant of Prime Minister Hun Sen, has spearheaded a widely criticised probe into an alleged affair by Sokha, spurred by covertly recorded phone conversations – purportedly between the opposition deputy president and a mistress – that were anonymously leaked online.
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Appeal Court Upholds KNLF Member’s Sentence
A member of an alleged insurrection movement known as the Khmer National Liberation Front (KNLF) had his sentence upheld by the Phnom Penh Appeal Court yesterday over allegations he had forged public documents and distributed literature aiming to overthrow the government between 2012 and 2014. Presiding Judge Pol Samoeun said 34-year-old Hin Chan was charged as an accomplice to treachery and for forging public documents under articles 453 and 629 of the penal code.
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Police block Preah Vihear land dispute forum
More than 200 people representing three Preah Vihear province communities were set to discuss land disputes yesterday when police broke up their public forum, according to Tork Hong, a representative of a local community from nearby Prey Lang forest. Organisers of the forum, which had been scheduled to take place in Chey Sen district’s Tasou commune, had sent a letter to District Governor Chum Poy’s office inviting him to speak, Hong said. However, yesterday morning, police arrived to break it up.
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Registration of voters bumped back again
National Election Committee spokesman Hang Puthea yesterday maintained that the country remains on track to hold commune elections in June 2017 despite the body again postponing the registration of voters in a new digital system because necessary equipment had not yet been acquired. Puthea said voter registration was now anticipated to begin in mid-August at the earliest. It marks the fourth delay to hit the process, which was initially set to begin in March.
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Eight arrested, released over ‘Black Monday’ protest
Four NGO staffers and a quartet of land activists emerged from police stations across the capital yesterday after being grilled for hours over their participation in the so-called “Black Monday” campaign, conducted in support of rights activists jailed last week over the ongoing Kem Sokha investigation. Sahmakum Teang Tnaut executive director Ee Sarom and Licadho deputy director Thav Kimsan were the first taken into custody yesterday morning, after being greeted by a heavy contingent of police as they attempted to reach Prey Sar prison, where they had hoped to demonstrate. Borei Keila land activist Sar Sorn soon joined the duo at the Dangkor district police office.
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