Hun Sen says opponents must ‘end culture of defamation and insults’
Son Chhay, Vice President of the Candlelight Party, speaks to media representatives in front of the Phnom Penh Municipal court on Oct. 7, 2022. (Photo: AFP)
Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen has indicated that his government will continue to use the courts to silence dissent after the longest-serving leader in Asia refused to accept an apology from a leading opposition figure.
Son Chhay, vice-president of the opposition Candlelight Party, lost a final appeal against a defamation conviction on Feb. 23 and was ordered to pay US $1 million in damages to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), led by Hun Sen, after he claimed that “votes were bought and stolen” at last year’s commune elections.
Government mouthpiece Fresh News, released an apology written by Son Chay before the court ruling saying he never “intended to accuse the CPP or the National Election Committee [NEC] of stealing votes, and I do not intend to accuse the CPP as a thief to steal ballots in the future.”
“If the CPP or the NEC considers in the interview that I accused one of stealing the ballot, I apologize,” the letter read.
“We received plenty of apologies”
Reacting to the apology, Hun Sen, who has been prime minister of Cambodia since 1985, responded: “We do not accept the apology. We want to end the culture of defamation and insults.”
The 70-year-old Hun Sen recalled previous apologies from Sam Rainsy, leader of the outlawed Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), saying, “We received plenty of apologies” but the insults did not stop. “Therefore, apologize in court.”
The Candlelight Party, emerged from the remnants of the CNRP and is the only serious challenger to CPP dominance with elections due on July 23. It has also complained that authorities are defacing and stealing party signs and billboards, and police are monitoring their meetings.
The Candlelight Party’s Kim Sour Phirith told Radio Free Asia, which is blocked in Cambodia, that almost all provinces had reported cases of intimidation and harassment.
This included police and local authorities threatening people who join the party, saying they will take away their state-issued poverty cards that allow struggling families to collect about 176,000 riels, or US$43 per month, to buy dry foodstuffs with long shelf lives.
Claims of intimidation came as the Phnom Penh Municipal Court upheld an 18-month jail sentence against Kem Tola, a former CNRP commune chief who allegedly made derogatory comments on social media about the government and this country’s monarch.
“I will appeal against it and ask the higher court to find the truth and free me from the prison,” she told the Khmer Times outside the court on Feb. 28.
More than a hundred CNRP activists have been rounded-up and jailed for incitement or plotting to overthrow Hun Sen’s government. Many others, including members of the Candlelight Party, have been charged with defamation.
Cambodia’s judicial system is ranked in second last place on the World Justice Project 2022 Rule of Law Index at 139 out of 140 countries. Cambodian authorities dispute that ranking, however, human rights groups have accused the government of using the courts to silence dissent.
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