Cambodia: Reaction to Human Rights Activists’ Arrest

Seserak, a Cambodian student studying in Japan, adds his voice to those criticizing the New Year's arrest of two local human rights activists by his government. “It is much more worrisome to think that the young democracy in Cambodia is dying; that the Cambodian government has deliberately chosen to walk on the wrong track; and that it prefers the authoritarian political system instead.”

1 comment

  • Odam

    Obviously, the recent arrests of Mr. Mr. KEM Sokha, head of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, Mr. YENG Virak, the director of the Community Legal Education Centre, and Mr. Pa Nguon Teang, Cambodian Center for Human Rights’ acting director along with the lifting of parliamentary immunity of some opposition party members are a real danger the Cambodian nascent democracy and part of a pre-emptive strategy aiming at evicting the political opposition from the coming elections in 2008 in order to facilitate the “come back” of the Republic of Democratic Kampuchea’s bloody dictatorship.

    The recurrent repression of free speech and democratic movements – materialized by the political assassinations and the arrests of peaceful human rights activists, journalists, border activists, and the representatives of the civil associations – is just a visible part of the dictatorial and genocidal nature of the previous Khmer Rouges leaders in power. Cambodia is led once again toward a totalitarian regime.

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