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Rights workers, two others ‘bribed witness’, court says; UN holds firm
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday sent four Adhoc staffers to Prey Sar prison and an election official to Phnom Penh’s PJ correctional facility after charging them with bribing a witness in the scandal surrounding CNRP acting president Kem Sokha and an alleged mistress. The four Adhoc staffers – Ny Sokha, Yi Soksan, Nay Vanda and Lem Mony – were charged by investigating judge Theam Chanpiseth for bribing a witness under Article 548 of the Criminal Code. Ny Chakrya, a former Adhoc official and National Election Committee deputy secretary-general, and Sally Soen, an employee with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), were charged as accomplices under articles 29 and 548.
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UN, Adhoc Staff Charged Over Sex Scandal
Four senior officers from local rights group Adhoc and a former officer who now works for the National Election Committee (NEC) were imprisoned on Monday on bribery charges over a sex scandal involving deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha. U.N. official Sally Soen was charged in absentia as an accomplice after failing to present himself for questioning.
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Minister intervenes in decades-long Tbong Khmum land dispute
Seemingly making good on promises of reform, newly appointed Minister of Land Management Chea Sophara appears to have intervened in a nearly 20-year-old land dispute on behalf of 16 families in Tbong Khmum province’s Suong town, who on Sunday wrote a letter to thank him. According to the letter, the villagers had been locked in a land dispute with the Vihea To Tem pagoda, which they claimed encroached on property that they had occupied – albeit without land titles – for decades. However, the dispute was swiftly resolved after Sophara visited the area and reviewed the documents, they said.
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Six Charged as Sex Scandal Escalates
After days of questioning, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court charged four Adhoc officials yesterday for allegedly bribing a witness, while a National Electoral Committee (NEC) and UN official were charged with conspiring to bribe a witness in relation to the Kem Sokha sex scandal. The four senior Adhoc officials, Ny Sokha, Nay Vanda, Yi Soksan and Lim Mony, were charged under Article 548 of the Penal Code and sent to CC1 and CC2 prisons in Phnom Penh.
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Political analyst Virak summonsed to court
Political commentator Ou Virak has been summonsed to appear at Phnom Penh Municipal Court on May 12 in relation to a defamation suit filed by Cambodian People’s Party spokesman Sok Eysan last week. Virak, who yesterday said he had yet to receive the summons and had only seen a copy of it in the media, said the summons should have been issued only after Eysan, who will appear before the court on Friday, had testified and the complaint was deemed a valid case.
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LANGO looming in Adhoc rearview
With the screws tightening on Adhoc, pro-government NGOs are calling for the government to use the newly enacted NGO Law to punish the rights group and other organisations caught up in the Kem Sokha mistress scandal using a provision that can be used to shut down civil society groups. The Cambodian Federation for Human Rights and Development (CFHRAD) and the Association of Youth for State Reform (AYFSR) argue that Adhoc and a UN staffer violated Article 24 of the controversial Law on Non-Government Organisations and Associations (LANGO), which stipulates NGOs should be politically “neutral”.
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On Labor Day, One March Abandoned, Another Improvised
About 2,000 workers in Phnom Penh on Sunday defied a government ban on celebrating International Labor Day with a march by getting as close as they could to the National Assembly, where they called for higher wages and changes to the newly approved Trade Union Law.
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Government Slammed for Arrests of NGO Officers
Four senior officials of local rights group Adhoc and a National Election Committee (NEC) official were arrested by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) on Thursday night over allegations that they instructed an alleged mistress of deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha to deny their affair.
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Accused soldiers’ superior off-limits
A Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge yesterday prohibited lawyers for two opposition lawmakers beaten outside parliament last year from probing the suspects for the name of their commander in the Prime Minister’s Bodyguard Unit. Soldiers Mao Hoeung, 34; Sot Vanny, 45; and Chhay Sarith, 33 – all members of the premier’s elite corp – yesterday faced their first day of trial, charged with intentional violence with aggravating circumstances and property damage over the October 26 attack on Cambodia National Rescue Party parliamentarians Kong Saphea and Nhay Chamroeun, who were dragged from their cars and beaten by at least 16 men.
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‘Perverse’ Watchdog Needs a Leash: NGOs
Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) officials and anti-terrorism police continued to grill rights workers for a second day yesterday, following a marathon session on Wednesday that lasted until 11 pm over allegations they told the alleged mistress of opposition leader Kem Sokha, Khom Chandaraty (also known as Srey Mom), to lie about their relationship to police. Three rights workers – Ny Sokha, Yi Soksan and Nai Vonda – were brought back to the ACU offices at 8 am yesterday for further questioning along with three new ones: Adhoc’s Lim Mony, National Election Committee deputy secretary-general Ny Chakrya and Silaka director Thida Khus. The ACU tried to bring in UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights officer Sally Soen, but Mr. Soen has immunity as a UN employee. Ms. Khus said she spent three hours at the ACU, 40 minutes of which were spent in the interrogation room, before being allowed to leave. The other five were still at the ACU late last night and according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, they were to be detained overnight.
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Prime Minister’s Bodyguard Describes Beating Lawmaker
One of three men on trial for the savage beating of two opposition lawmakers last year admitted in court on Thursday that he and his co-defendants were members of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s personal bodyguard unit, a claim vigorously denied by officials in the past. Chay Sarith, 33; Mao Hoeun, 34; and Suth Vanny, 45, have been charged with intentional violence with aggravating circumstances and intentional property damage with aggravating circumstances for their role in the attack on CNRP lawmakers Nhay Chamroeun and Kong Saphea outside the National Assembly in October.
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Land Dispute with Well-connected Company Drags on
Thirty-four people gathered in front of the Kampong Chhnang provincial hall yesterday morning to submit a petition demanding a solution to their decade-long dispute with the politically-connected KDC International company. The company is owned by the wife of Mines Minister Suy Sem, Chea Kheng.
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CNRP Asks the King to Intervene, but Prince Says Bad Idea
Fifty-three lawmakers from the CNRP have written to King Norodom Sihamoni asking him to intervene to end what they describe as the CPP’s absorption and abuse of state institutions, although a prominent royal member of the party said on Thursday that he believed the letter was unwise.
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Coming out: Film places ‘ladyboys’ at the fore
Filmmaker Sok Visal’s new feature flips the script on traditional portrayals of LGBT characters in Cambodian cinema. Not because of some rights agenda, he says, but just to tell a human – and entertaining – story. When actress and entertainer Poppy – born Leang Sothea – found herself in rural Kampong Chhnang last October on the set of her latest film, Poppy Goes to Hollywood, the villagers already knew her as “Miss Poppy”.
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Graft Unit Grills Rights Workers; UN Stays Away
The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) questioned officers of local human rights group Adhoc late into the evening for a second straight day on Thursday over claims that they had instructed the alleged mistress of deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha to deny their affair. It followed the imprisonment of an opposition commune chief in Kompong Cham province on Wednesday for allegedly paying the sup- posed mistress, Khom Chandaraty, $500 to lie and say that she and Mr. Sokha had not had a sexual relationship. CNRP lawmaker Mao Monyvann said on Wednesday that the money came from concerned Cambodians in New Zealand and was meant only for Ms. Chandaraty’s mother, out of concern for her poverty.
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New ‘Sokha’ recording out amid ACU grilling
Three senior Adhoc staffers resumed their questioning at the Anti-Corruption Unit yesterday and were joined by women’s rights advocate Thida Kus, Adhoc’s Lem Mony and the National Election Committee’s Ny Chakrya. As they were grilled inside, yet another new purported audio recording of CNRP acting president Kem Sokha was released on Facebook, this featuring an alleged conversation with a Kampong Cham commune chief jailed on bribery charges.
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Government Runs Amok as Opposition Leaders Absent
In his New York Times best-selling book “The 48 Laws of Power,” Robert Greene offers simple advice to the reader comfortable in power but threatened by hints of resistance: Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will scatter. “Trouble can often be traced to a single strong individual—the stirrer, the arrogant underling, the poisoner of goodwill. If you allow such people room to operate, others will succumb to their influence,” Mr. Green writes.
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Kampong Chhnang disputants’ water woes ‘ignored’
Some 34 families in Kampong Chhnang’s Lorpeang village yesterday filed a new petition at the provincial hall urging authorities to intervene in a nine-year land dispute with KDC International, which villagers say has reached a bottleneck and is affecting their daily lives. Disputants also claim they are facing water shortages, but no one is coming to help.
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Commune Chief Jailed; Adhoc Staff Grilled
An opposition commune chief was sent to prison and three senior officials from local rights group Adhoc were questioned late into the night on Wednesday over claims they convinced deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha’s alleged mistress to deny an affair. With the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) inexplicably investigating the alleged relationship in tandem with anti-terrorism police, Seang Chet, the chief of a commune in Kompong Cham province, was on Sunday arrested after being accused of bribery.
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Of 16 who assaulted MPs, only three, all Bodyguard Unit members, face trial
With three men set to face court today over the brutal bashing of two opposition lawmakers outside parliament last year, official documents have confirmed the accused are members of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s personal Bodyguard Unit – while additional evidence suggests further involvement by the elite unit. Mao Hoeung, 34; Sot Vanny, 45; and Chhay Sarith, 33, were due to appear at Phnom Penh Municipal Court this morning on charges of intentional violence with aggravating circumstances and property damage in relation to the October 26 attack on CNRP lawmakers Nhay Chamroeun and Kong Saphea.
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