UN rights envoy Surya Subedi concerned by barricading of Cambodia's Freedom Park

Australia Network News | 25 June 2014

Photo: Freedom Park, in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, has been barricaded since a crackdown on protests in January (Reuters: Samrang Pring, file phot)

The UN human rights envoy to Cambodia says the space for democracy has shrunk following a bloody crackdown on protesters earlier this year.

Months of anti-government protests boiled over in January this year, when police open fired on striking workers and opposition supporters.

The next day, as anti-government demonstrators regrouped at a popular site they had occupied for weeks, security guards moved in to dismantle their camp.

Surya Subedi, who is in Cambodia tracking the country's progress on human rights, says the recent barricading of popular protest site Freedom Park has no justification.

"When visiting Freedom Park - a symbol of democracy - I was sorry to see it surrounded by barbed wire, preventing people from going there and exercising their freedom of speech and assembly," he said. 

"It gives me the impression that there has been an attempt to put democracy in a cage in Cambodia!"

While he's welcomed the release of a number of people arrested during the clashes, Surya Subedi says the ongoing ban on public gatherings in Freedom Park has no legal basis.

"The barricading of Freedom Park has no justification in law and has a chilling effect on the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and assembly of all Cambodian people," he said.

"At the conclusion of my current visit, I remain unclear as to the existence or otherwise of a ban on demonstrations and call upon the government to publicly declare that the ban the government announced in early January is no longer in place."

A government spokesman last week confirmed the ban will stick until protesters learn to "obey the law".

Surya Subedi will present his final recommendations to UN human rights council in September.

His calls to lift the ban are among a number of recommendations to the Cambodian Government.

He says he's concerned about the transparency and independence of three new laws, and a lack of government consultation.

On the thorny issue of land rights, he's called for a re-examination of how the government deals with land disputes.

"I am deeply concerned by the numerous reports of violent evictions conducted in 2014, including physical assaults and the burning and bulldozing of homes," he said. 

"They demonstrate the urgent need for a national resettlement policy that properly regulates eviction and resettlement processes."

Surya Subedi warns that while there's some cause for optimism, Cambodia risks a return to violence is the government doesn't reform properly.

"I sense a deep rooted frustration amongst the population, especially the youth, rural poor and other disfranchised and dispossessed people, about the lack of progress on some of the promised reforms," he said.