Reports on the Threats to Political Parties Activists

21st March 2008
By Serey Rath
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Khmerization

The Committee for Free and Fair Election in Cambodia (COMFREL) has said that political threats to political parties activists from the non-ruling parties and the concerns over personal security has increased twofold more than the year 2006.

The COMFREL’s report dated 20th March which has recorded the activities of the 2008 election preparations has released the statistics which shows that the Sam Rainsy Party has received 29 cases of threats, Funcinpec Party has received 2, Norodom Ranariddh Party has received 12 and the Human Rights Party has received 6 cases of threats and other political parties have received 2 threats.

COMFREL’s report stated that most cases of threats happened in Banteay Meanchey province, Kampong Cham province, Kampong Chhnang, Kampong Speu, Kampong Thom, Kandal and in many other provinces also.

Other than threats there were 12 cases of destruction of party signs, especially party signs of the newly-formed parties.

The report, which was released yesterday, reported that many high government officials and military personnel have used government-paid time to lobby and to distribute gifts to voters to vote for the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP).

COMFREL has also said that the National Election Committee and other election-related authorities have never resolved those issues.

Other than political threats there are also 12 cases of party sign destructions, especially for those newly-formed political parties. COMFREL has also noted that in the 135 broadcasts on the state-owned TV, Funcinpec party has received 21 coverage while the Sam Rainsy Party has only received 5 coverage.

The exercise of political freedom of expression by political parties and by civil society through rallies/marches and the dissemination of information in public places were met with hindrances and crackdowns from armed groups and powerful authorities who used their influences and power to hinder and to forbid the owners of the places not to rent out the places to other political parties or non-governmental organisations, except the ruling party.

How did this governmental organisation (COMFREL) gather this sorts of information to arrive at the above results? Mr. Chan Darith, senior COMFREL information officer, explained: “COMFREL has posted 300 long-term observers throughout the country. And those observers will monitor the political situations relating to the election in their respective areas and prepare weekly or quarterly reports. And we have frequent contacts with each other. When emergency situations arose they will prepare emergency reports to the central office (in Phnom Penh). On the other hand, we also have our staff working at our central office. Their tasks were to observe and monitor the media broadcasts - that is we are monitoring the broadcasts of the state TV’s in particular. At this stage we haven’t monitored the broadcasts of the other media outlets much as yet. We are focusing on the state TV’s broadcasts in particular. And we have our working group to monitor the newspapers, political (environment) and the election (process) also.” //