The Wall Street Journal
By Chun Han Wong
- European Press/photo Agency
- Paramilitary police stand guard outside the Peace Palace, the venue for the 21st Association of South East Asian Nations summit in Phnom Penh.
PHNOM PENH—Civil-society groups that hope to stage rallies in protest
of alleged human-rights abuses and other social issues as leaders from
around Asia-Pacific gather here for a summit are complaining that their
events have been disrupted.
The Cambodian government, mindful of the imminent arrivals of U.S. President Barack Obama
and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, has put a lid on public demonstrations,
citing security and safety concerns. Cambodia, as chair of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations and host of the East Asia Summit,
is also welcoming leaders from the region and Japan, South Korea and
India.
The high-powered affair has also drawn large numbers of civil-society
groups to Phnom Penh, where they had hoped to hold rallies and
meetings. But some groups have alleged that several venues due to host
their forums pulled the plug at the last minute under government
pressure.
A meeting of more than 1,500 people held Tuesday by the ASEAN
Grassroots Peoples’ Assembly was disrupted when electricity to the venue
was cut, said the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, a
regional coalition of civil-society organizations. Similar disruptions
also took place Wednesday, while some activists have also been turned
away by hoteliers under pressure from authorities, it said.
The government, however, denied that it is trying to silence activists.
“What the activists are saying are half-truths. Cambodia is open to
everyone coming here to express themselves, but they have to comply with
our rules,” Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan told The Wall
Street Journal.
No public demonstrations will be permitted during the course of the
summits, Mr. Phay said. “Security and public order is a priority because
of the ASEAN summit, and we don’t want any disruptions.”
Some rights groups are still planning to march through Phnom Penh to
present policy recommendations to Cambodian and ASEAN leaders, according
to Rupert Abbot, a Cambodia-based researcher at Amnesty International.
Southeast Asian leaders are set to formally adopt the ASEAN human
rights declaration this weekend, despite calls from Navi Pillay, the
United Nations high commissioner for human rights, and leading rights
groups to postpone it, citing concerns that the declaration falls short
of universal human rights standards.
Several U.S. lawmakers, including Sens. Patrick Leahy and John McCain,
and leading nongovernment organizations have called on Mr. Obama to
make use of his Cambodia visit—the first by a sitting U.S. president—to
pressure Phnom Penh into improving its human-rights record.
Separately, eight Cambodian villagers were arrested Thursday for
planning to protest their eviction from their homes near Phnom Penh’s
airport to make way for an expansion, according to the Associated Press,
citing rights activists and a police spokesman.
The villagers had hoped to attract the attention of Mr. Obama when he
flies in by plastering the U.S. president’s picture on their rooftops
beside spray-painted messages of “SOS,” the AP reported.
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