A Change of Guard

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Wednesday 24 June 2009

Opposition MPs sought intervention from U.S Embassy while two of their colleagues are in hiding after their immunity was lifted

Mrs. Mu Sochua (L) and Mr. Ho Vann (bottom).

Source: Khmer Sthapana newspaper
Reported in English by Khmerization

There are media reports that the two MPs who were stripped of their parliamentary immunity on Monday had been in hiding or escaped the country for fearing the arrests by the authority, reports Khmer Sthapana.

Khmer Sthapana reports that Mr. Ho Vann, MP for Phnom Penh, has gone into hiding and Mrs. Mu Sochua, MP for Kampot, has escaped the country, while their colleagues are busy in talks with the U.S ambassador to seek intervention.

Mrs. Mu Sochua was stripped of her parliamentary immunity to pave a way for the court to charge her in relation to a defamation lawsuit lodged by Prime Minister Hun Sen. Mr. Ho Vann was sued by 22 millitary officers for defamation because he criticised their qualifications awarded by a Vietnamese institute.

According to Khmer Sthapana, Mrs. Mu Sochua had boarded a plane and left Cambodia at 11 pm on the night of 22nd, the same day she was stripped of her immunity, while Mr. Ho Vann had gone into hiding in a safe place and his telephone had been turned off.

But, speaking to ABC Radio Australia after her immnuty was lifted, Mrs. Mu Sochua denied rumours that she had escaped Cambodia and said that she will return back to face the court and go to jail if she is convicted.

Khmer Sthapana quoted a source from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) as saying that on the morning of 23rd, SRP Vice-President Mr. Kong Korm, SRP Secretary-General Mrs. Ke Sovannaroth and SRP spokesman Mr. Yim Sovann had a meeting at the U.S Embassy with an embassy staff in charge of political affairs. The agenda of the talks centre around the lifting of the parliamentary immunity of their two colleagues.

Mr. Yim Sovan told Khmer Sthapana that Mr. Ho Vann is in hiding in a safe place in Phnom Penh, but denied that he was hiding in the U.S embaasy by saying that Mr. Ho Vann does not need to seek asylum in a foreign embaasy because he had done nothing wrong.

Speaking at a school inauguration ceremony in Kraing Yov village in Kandal province on the the afternoon of 22nd, Mr, Hun Sen warned foreign diplomats not to meddle in the affiars of Cambodia.

The U.S embassy has been very critical with regard to the lifting of the two's immunity. Mr. John Johnson, US Embassy spokesman John Johnson said the National Assembly’s decision “threatened” democratic developments the country had made in recent years.

“We are concerned that two parliamentarians were left exposed yesterday by the National Assembly to criminal prosecution, and have been disappointed to see the constriction of free expression in Cambodia over the past several months,” Johnson wrote in an e-mail.

“It appears that the courts are being used to intimidate critics of the government,” he said. “Free speech and freedom of the press are fundamental rights in democracies throughout the world, and public figures and politicians should be prepared to receive both praise and criticism from the people they govern as part of the democratic process.”

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