A student who appeared to lead a protest this week against U.N. human
rights envoy Surya Subedi claimed Thursday the university lecture hall
confrontation was completely unplanned, and had nothing to do with his
close connections to a CPP-aligned youth movement.
On Tuesday evening, 23-year-old Chea Chheng, a student at the Royal
University of Law and Economics, was among the most vocal of a group of
students who angrily accused special rapporteur Subedi of bias, as
others unfurled banners calling for Mr. Subedi to cease his work
monitoring human rights in Cambodia.
Union
of Youth Federations of Cambodia (UYFC) president and Prime Minister
Hun Sen’s son, Hun Many, center right, poses with Chea Chheng, right,
and other UYFC supporters in this undated photograph.
Fellow students identified Mr. Chheng as a well-known figure with the
Union of Youth Federations of Cambodia (UYFC) a CPP-aligned youth group
headed by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s son and CPP National Assembly
candidate Hun Many.
In an interview Thursday, Mr. Chheng said he only volunteered for the
UYFC, as he did for Prime Minister Hun Sen’s national land-titling
program, and said Tuesday’s demonstration against the envoy at the
Cambodian Mekong University was spontaneous and was not linked to the
CPP.
“I just wanted to respond to the failure of [Mr. Subedi’s] report.
That’s why I took the opportunity of his lecture at the university to
raise my questions regarding his report,” Mr. Chheng said. “The protest
was not planned or pre-organized. Being a Cambodian youth, I have the
right of free expression,” he said.
“Banners, of course, were prepared by other students, but it was not planned in advance,” he said.
“Indeed, I was not a leader of the protest. Whatever I did was not
for the gain of any political party. I just expressed my disappointment
[with Mr. Subedi].”
SRP lawmaker Yim Sovann said he could not say for sure whether the
students were politically motivated, but said that he “wouldn’t be
surprised” if some of the young protesters turned up in government
positions in the future.
Independent political analyst Lao Mong Hay said Wednesday that there
were reasons why young people would want to join pro-CPP youth
movements.
“It’s quite understandable. There are incentives they enjoy,” he said. “They can find jobs and that kind of thing—privileges.”
An earlier youth movement loyal to Mr. Hun Sen, the Pagoda Children,
Intelligentsia and Students Association, widely known as the Pagoda
Boys, were a regular presence for a number of years, staging
pro-government counter-demonstrations against groups affiliated to the
political opposition. The group of avid Hun Sen loyalists would
frequently intervene, physically, in so-called inappropriate protests,
by factory workers seeking wage rises, for example.
The Pagoda Boys have been quiet of late, though the group’s former
president, Seng Sovannara, was in 2005 appointed as deputy governor of
Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district, and now serves as an undersecretary of
state at the Ministry of Justice.
© 2013, The Cambodia Daily. All rights reserved. No
part of this article may be reproduced in print, electronically,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without written permission.
9 comments:
We feel a shame to be Cambodia, but wanna do something to kick and destroy Yuon/Vietnamese CPP crooks and cronies who are advisers to Yuon/Vietnamese dog/puppet Hun Sen (Hai Phuc).
There is no denial that this is a planned protest because there were too many students and placards at the same time insulting the UN representative.
DON'T COMPLAINED TOO MUCH ...
IT DEMOCRACY COUNTRY - ALL PEOPLES HAS THE RIGHTS TO EXPRESSION
Only an idiotic person would by these pathetic cronies. They went through many practices and long planed, coached, and tell what to say, AND still NOT articulate of their words, questions, a lot screaming and yelling, and very difficult to even understand of what they have said. That shows how illiterate these cronies are.
Where are the authorities to oversee the security? These are hooligans that instructed of what to do. It is just too obvious.
As a Cambodian man, I feel so contrite to the UN representative and to the world, that some of my people so illiterate and behaved like thugs.
You can not find anything like this anywhere in the world, IT ONLY HAPPEN IN MY COUNTRY, CAMBODIA.
You are absolutely WRONG!....Its happened in Nambodia under instruction of their primative's leader the gook's slave called Hun Sen.Their youth were instructed to trash UN envoy to prove that Hun Sen is the Boss in Nambodia these days.
The protesters today by the Moto-dup people were also bribed to say bad thing called bad name to UN envoy using the same words that Hun Sen had used against Mong Hai the political analysor during Asian summit in Phenom Penh.
You see folks,these people were political'tools these people were useful idiots working for Hun Sen to trash his opponent who Hun Sen didn't like.These students were puppet to bad evil regime and talking like their master as well...
Kmenhwatt
if, u don't liked Cambodia under decho SEN rules,
no one asked u live & die in Cambodia
it free world / democracy world
u can live & die in abroad..
ពូជអា ហ៊ុន សែន! គឺអាឈាមថោក!កពា្ជះយួនដាច់ថៃ្ល
25 May 2013 8:11 am,
You sound like a killer and criminal yourself because of the way you said in your comment.
How coward you are!
Can we say to you again, that you are a Vietnamese/Yuon barbaric?
8:11 am
You want us to live and die abroad so that YOU can easily steal and sell our lands.
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