Activists slam Cambodia obstruction

• Published: 15/11/2012
• Bangkok Post

  

  Writer: Achara Ashayagachat

  Position: Reporter

Phnom Penh: Southeast Asian activists on Thursday cried foul over attempts by Cambodian authorities to derail their meetings just as the government prepares to host the Asean summit.

Their regional meeting in the Cambodian capital under the banner of the Asean Civil Society Conference and Asean People Forum was disrupted by local authorities in a manner similar to other events held by Cambodia's grass roots organisation, the Asean Grassroots People's Assembly, in many provinces.

Sam Sora, a core member of the assembly, said seminars which had been held at different venues in many provinces around the country were forced to be suspended or moved elsewhere.

They ended their meetings on Thursday and plan to march through the city on Friday in protest despite a government-imposed ban on all public protests.

"From Phnom Penh's own track record of silencing criticism, it is expected that we are facing hard times here. Yet it's unfortunate that this is happening as the host government is seeing through the adoption of the Asean Human Rights Declaration,'' Yap Swee Seng of the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development said.

The activists from 60 groups rejected the declaration slated to be adopted at the forthcoming Asean summit.

They issued a statement calling on Asean countries to postpone the adoption as it is "not worthy of the name'' and urged them to send the draft back to the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights to revise it so that it is in line with international laws.

One of their disappointments was that all of the rights provided in the declaration would be subject to restriction on a wide array of grounds including "national security'' and "public morality.''