Cambodia: Unrepentant About Crackdown
Donors Should Press Government on Rights
Prime MinisterHun Sen and those speaking on his behalf have shown their true colors in this process, ignoring serious recommendations and falling back on a false exceptionalism to justify their continued rights abuses. Foreign donors who give so much assistance to Cambodia should jointly use their influence to push for the government to end its reliance on human rights violations to control the country. - Brad Adams, Asia director
(New York) – Cambodia
has brushed aside calls at the UN Human Rights Council to reverse its
crackdown on human rights and reform its abusive policies and practices,
Human Rights Watch said today. Cambodia’s partners in the international
community should redouble their pressure for Phnom Penh to address the
many abuses the UN review process brought forward.
Cambodia was responding to recommendations by other governments at
its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session on June 26, 2014, at the UN
Human Rights Council. The UPR is a rights review mechanism through which
all UN member states are examined once every four years.
“Faced with an upsurge in demands for fundamental changes to ensure respect for human rights, the government of Cambodian
In a move that is tantamount to rejection, Cambodia merely “noted”
that it had received a litany of recommendations addressing core human
rights problems. Among issues deflected were calls for the government to
end its arbitrary suspension of the right to freedom of peaceful
assembly and of actions to ensure media freedom, including internet
freedom, and calls for no one to be detained or imprisoned due to their
exercise of their right to freedom of expression.
Other governments’ recommendations that fell on deaf ears in Phnom
Penh included that Cambodia end unfair trials, and take actions to
create a more favorable human rights environment for opposition party
members, human rights defenders, journalists, and activists. Cambodia
also sidestepped demands to investigate recent incidents of excessive
use of fatal force by security units, end impunity for such illegal
violence, and take legal and institutional reforms to put an end to
torture.
The Cambodia government also snubbed recommendations to end other
abuses, to protect land rights as stipulated by Cambodia’s constitution
and to cooperate more fully with UN human rights experts and mechanisms.
In its presentation on June 26, Cambodia also reneged on its earlier
acceptance of four recommendations, including one calling on it
specifically “to protect free and independent media” and three relating
to the education of children.
Justifying the government’s position, Cambodia’s mission to the UN in
Geneva said it had withheld acceptance of the noted recommendations
because they might not “reflect the situation on the ground” or not be
“in line with the national, regional situation.” It asserted the
rejected recommendations were “contrary to the laws and Constitution of
Cambodia.”
On June 27, Chheang Vun, a spokesman for the ruling Cambodian
People’s Party, said: “We have taken into account their recommendations
on some laws already, but what we don’t listen to them … what we don’t
accept from them cannot be applied in Cambodia, because Cambodian
society is not theirs.” He said Cambodia opposed suggestions that would
force “state institutions to become barricaded” off from acting against
other parties or individuals protesting against the government.
“Prime Minister Hun Sen and those speaking on his behalf have shown
their true colors in this process, ignoring serious recommendations and
falling back on a false exceptionalism to justify their continued rights
abuses,” Adams said. “Foreign donors who give so much assistance to
Cambodia should jointly use their influence to push for the government
to end its reliance on human rights violations to control the country.”
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