October 1, 2015
Cambodia: Drop Case Against Opposition Senator
Forgery and Incitement Charges Without Basis
© 2015 Reuters |
(New
York) – Cambodian authorities should end the prosecution of an
opposition senator who has been wrongfully charged with forgery and
incitement for posting online an inaccurate version of a 1979
Cambodia-Vietnam treaty, Human Rights Watch said today. The next hearing
in the case against Senator Hong Sok Hour is scheduled for October 2.
Hong
Sok Hour, a dual Cambodian-French citizen who represents the Sam Rainsy
Party (SRP) in the Senate, was arrested on August 15 on public orders
from Prime Minister Hun Sen. He ordered Sok Hour’s arrest after he
posted a video clip on the Facebook page of Sam Rainsy, president of the
main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, of which SRP is a
founding party. The authorities denied Sok Hour bail, and he is being
held pending trial. The judge in the case has refused to allow him to
receive a specialist medical examination and possibly necessary
treatment for hypertension and cardiac disease.
“Relations
between Cambodia and Vietnam are politically sensitive, but they are no
excuse for bringing criminal charges over a disputed document,” said
Brad Adams, Asia director. “The Cambodian government has already pointed
out that the document was inaccurate and in a democracy the matter
should be left at that.”
There
is no basis for forgery and incitement charges, which should be dropped
and Hong Sok Hour immediately and unconditionally released.
Hun Sen has turned an inaccurate historical statement into a criminal offense to crack down on the political opposition and demonstrate that he can arrest and imprison anybody, anytime. Cambodia’s donors should not let Hun Sen and his government get away with stifling free expression and the democratic process, but should jointly and publicly call for those practices to end.
Brad Adams' Asia director
The
video at the center of the case contained a Khmer-language text
purporting to be article 4 of the February 18, 1979 Treaty of Friendship
between Cambodia and Vietnam, which was made public at the time.
Shortly after the video was posted, a secretary of state at the Council
of Ministers declared the version it presented of article 4 was “fake.”
In ordering Hong Sok Hour’s arrest, Hun Sen characterized the posting of
the video as an “act of treason.”
Most
contentious was a sentence saying that Cambodia and Vietnam had
supposedly agreed to “dissolve” the border between the two countries.
Issues related to the border have been a matter of controversy and
concern in Cambodia for many decades and have recently been the subject
of an outpouring of public discussion, including by both government and
opposition politicians.
The
government responded to the Facebook posting by disseminating the
official Khmer-language text of article 4, which does not contain any
reference to dissolution of the border. The discrepancy between the two
texts is the basis for three charges against Hong Sok Hour: forgery via
intentional alteration of a public document, knowing use of such a
forged document, and incitement directly intended to generate “serious
disturbance of the security of society” by such use.
There
is no evidence, though, that Hong Sok Hour himself created the
inaccurate text, that he was aware of inaccuracies in it, or that his
intention in making it public was to cause anything more than further
discussions of the border issue. An examination of the language used in
the two texts strongly indicates that the version posted by Hong Sok
Hour is not a forgery, but a bad translation back into Khmer of a poor
translation of the Khmer original into French or English.
The
procedures by which the authorities arrested Hong Sok Hour also raise
serious concerns. The government asserted that because the video clip
remained on Sam Rainsy’s Facebook page for several days, Hong Sok Hour
could be arrested in flagrante delicto (in the act of committing a
crime) and that therefore his parliamentary immunity as a senator from
arrest, prosecution, and detention for expressions of opinions in the
course of his senatorial duties did not apply.
After
the government announced that he would be arrested, Hong Sok Hour went
to and later left the French embassy. A heavily armed mixed force of
counter-terrorism police, controlled by Hun Sen’s son-in-law Dy Vichea,
and other forces carried out the arrest.
The
prosecution of Hong Sok Hour contravenes Cambodia’s obligations on the
rights to freedom of expression and opinion under the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Cambodia is party. The
United Nations Human Rights Committee, the international expert body
that monitors state compliance with the covenant, has stated that: “Laws
that penalize the expression of opinions about historical facts are
incompatible with the obligations that the Covenant imposes on States
parties in relation to the respect for freedom of opinion and
expression. The Covenant does not permit general prohibition of
expressions of an erroneous opinion or an incorrect interpretation of
past events.”
“Hun
Sen has turned an inaccurate historical statement into a criminal
offense to crack down on the political opposition and demonstrate that
he can arrest and imprison anybody, anytime,” Adams said. “Cambodia’s
donors should not let Hun Sen and his government get away with stifling
free expression and the democratic process, but should jointly and
publicly call for those practices to end.”
5 comments:
The prosecution of this Khmer hero will only stengethen the fact that Hun Sen is a Khmer traitor.
As we all know the Vietnamese will hide truth and continue to gain profit from Hun Sen.
The Vietnamese will also continue to hide evidence of their carnage act of evil against other culture. Yet, they tells people that Khmer are racist and wants to kill all minorities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champa
The Vietnamese government fears that evidence of Champa's influence over the disputed area in the South China Sea would bring attention to human rights violations and killings of ethnic minorities in Vietnam such as in the 2001 and 2004 uprisings, and lead to the issue of Cham autonomy being brought into the dispute, since the Vietnamese conquered Cham people in a war in 1832. The Vietnamese continue to destroy evidence of Cham culture and artifacts left behind, plundering or building on top of Cham temples, building farms over them, banning Cham religious practices, and omitting references to the Cham capital of Song Luy, destroyed in the 1832 invasion, in history books and tourist guides.
The prosecution of this Khmer hero will only stengethen the fact that Hun Sen is a Khmer traitor.
As we all know the Vietnamese will hide truth and continue to gain profit from Hun Sen.
The Vietnamese will also continue to hide evidence of their carnage act of evil against other culture. Yet, they tells people that Khmer are racist and wants to kill all minorities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champa
The Vietnamese government fears that evidence of Champa's influence over the disputed area in the South China Sea would bring attention to human rights violations and killings of ethnic minorities in Vietnam such as in the 2001 and 2004 uprisings, and lead to the issue of Cham autonomy being brought into the dispute, since the Vietnamese conquered Cham people in a war in 1832. The Vietnamese continue to destroy evidence of Cham culture and artifacts left behind, plundering or building on top of Cham temples, building farms over them, banning Cham religious practices, and omitting references to the Cham capital of Song Luy, destroyed in the 1832 invasion, in history books and tourist guides.
every unjust action adds up one more nail their coffin and their demise.
who are these black clay uniform soldiers?
These black clad uniform soldiers are at best don't know the right form wrong to serve this regime and at worse are mercenary to kill his own people.
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