Article 1 of the Constitutioni commits Cambodia to the principles of pluralism and liberal democracy while Article 31 provides that Cambodia will “recognise and respect human rights as stipulated in the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human rights, the covenants and conventions related to human rights, women’s and children’s rights”.ii This factsheet sets out the current situation of human rights in Cambodia and considers het state of democracy by outlining briefly the nature and role of the government and opposition respectively.

SITUATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Freedom of Expression

The situation of freedom of expression in Cambodia is dire. The ruling Cambodian People’s Party(CPP) owns and controls the media, television broadcast licenses are limited to individuals aligned with the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) and a moratorium on new radio broadcasts threatens to severely curtail opposition voices’ access to the radio waves.iii There are currently only two non-­‐government aligned newspapers in print, one of which, Moneaksekar Khmer returned to press in January 2010 after an 8 month self-­‐imposed closure after editor Dam Sith was charged with defamation and disinformation for printing segments of a speech by opposition leader Sam Rainsy.iv A third paper, Khmer Amatak, closed in September 2010 after publisher Bun Tha was summonsed for questioning on charges of disinformation and defamation following a complaint by a Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.v While the RGC has yet to control internet usage, they have declared their intention to do so in the future. Sieng Sithy, deputy director of the Directorate of Telecommunications Policy Regulation at the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, wrote in an e-­‐mail to 10 local ISPs to thank them for their efforts to block a series of anti-­‐governmental including KI-­‐Media and several of its mirror sites, Khmerization and the website of several cartoonists including Sacrava.vi Though Khieu Kanharith, Minister of Information, distanced the government from this initiative by suggesting that he not been aware of the request and that it did not represent government policy.

A CCHR-­‐coordinated Joint NGO Report ‘Cambodia Gagged: Democracy at Risk’ (Sep 2010)vii, highlights the RGC crackdown on opinion and expression deemed critical of the CPP and RGC and considers the repercussions for democracy in Cambodia. This crackdown has seen criminal prosecutions and convictions of journalists, human rights activists and opposition parliamentarians; the closure of newspapers; and threats of disbarment against lawyers. Hang Chakra, the editor of an opposition aligned newspaper was imprisoned for an article alleging corruption against the RGC; NGO leader Moeung Sonn was given a two year sentence for criticizing lighting installations at Angkor Wat; while three members of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) had their parliamentary immunity removed to face criminal prosecution on politically motivated charges. Sam Rainsy himself is living in exile and Hun Sen has stated that he will not be permitted to contest the next general election in 2013. For information on the criminal case against SRP politician Mu Sochua initiated by Prime Minister Hun Sen, refer to CCHR’s ‘Analysis of the Fairness of the Judicial Process Resulting in the Conviction of Elected Representative Mu Sochua’(Jul 2010)viii.

The early signs suggest that this trend looks likely to continue; the new Penal Codeix, which came into force in November 2010, maintains the offences of disinformation and defamation and extends the latter to statements deemed to undermine the reputation of an institutions while two new offences proscribe comments “intended to influence a court” and criticisms of a judicial act or decision. Concerns that the new Penal Code would leave human rights activists and others who question the actions of the economic or political elite at even greater peril were realised soon after its coming into force. On 25 January 2011, Sam Chankea, a provincial coordinator of a human rights organisation, the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, was found guilty of defamation under the new Penal Code for comments which he made on Radio Free Asia in 2009 regarding KDC International, a firm run by the wife of the Minister for Industry, Mines and Energy which is involved in a long standing land dispute in Kampong Chhnang province.x On 17 January, the Kampong Chhang Provincial Court convicted a villager, Reach Seima, of defamation in connection with the same case, he was ordered to pay $1,475 USD in fines and compensation to the firm.xi In a recent speech, Prime Minister Hun Sen outlined his intention “to make the opposition group die”.xii A CCHR-­‐coordinated Joint NGO Report ‘Cambodia: Freedom of Expression and the Point of No Return’ (Feb 2011)xiii, warns that the situation of freedom of expression in Cambodia has been worsening steadily in recent months, with space to speak openly, share opinions, and protest peacefully, shrinking.

Recent incidents of threats and intimidation against journalists are equally concerning. On 14 January 2011, Sovan Philong, a photographer from The Phnom Penh Post, was prevented from taking photographs of a standoff between Boeung Kak lake residents.xiv Days later the government’s Anticorruption Unit (ACU) confiscated tape recorders from journalists present at a press conference on the orders of ACU head, Om Yintieng, who is also the head of the government’s human rights committee. In response to this incident, the Committee to Protect Journalists stated: ‘Despite its legal commitments to uphold press freedom, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government continues to use strong-­‐armed tactics against the media.’xv On the 18th December, Seng Kunnaka, a security guard at ADHOC, was arrested after he shared a web article from KI-­‐Media with two co-­‐workers. Whilst the precise content of the article is unknown, KI-­‐Media is a news website known to be critical of the government. Seng Kunnaka was arrested, charged and sentenced within a three day period, what Human Rights Watch condemned as a profound setback for freedom of expression in the Kingdomxvi.

Freedom of Association

Limiting freedom of association appears to be one of the RGC’s legislative prioritiesxvii. Two forthcoming laws, the Law on Associations and Non-­‐Governmental Organisations (the “NGO Law) and the Law on Trade Unions (“Union Law”), as they are currently formulated, threaten to deal a fatal blow to the right to freedom of association in the Kingdom. The draft NGO Law contains a number of vague and problematic provisions, including a requirement of compulsory registration for all NGOs before they are allowed to “operate any activity” and imposes burdensome, overly-­‐bureaucratic registration requirements. It is feared that the vague provisions of the NGO Law may provide for arbitrary and selective denial of registration applications, resulting in the criminalisation and/or closure of NGOs and other associations, with the law silent on any appeal process if a registration application is rejected.xviii Similarly, the Union Law imposes onerous registration processes and reporting obligations on groups of employees. The registration requirements in both laws will mean that if groups fail to register, then their activities and the very fact of forming an association will be deemed illegal.xix Moreover, the process of drafting of these laws was problematic and did not allow for proper input and consultations of the civil society. For example the Draft NGO Law was made available for review by civil society at the end of 2010. Interested parties were given less than a month to review the draft before a single day’s consultation with the RGC.

Freedom of Assembly

The Demonstration Lawxx which was passed by the National Assembly in December 2009 fails to adequately protect the freedoms of expression and assembly and requires, amongst other things, notifications to the authorities of meetings held in private property. CCHR has encountered cases where meetings held in people’s own homes have been stopped by the authorities on the grounds that notification was not given.For example, on 26 January 2011, a Kampong Cham man, Ly Leang, was arrested without a warrant after he sent a request to CCHR for a public forum to discuss an ongoing land dispute between hundreds of villagers and a businessman. Ly Leang was released on bail the following day after 200 villagers blocked a road in protest at his arrestxxi.

In 2010, the increased cost of living in Cambodia resulting from global inflation led to calls for an increase in the minimum wage by industrial workers. In September, nationwide strikes involving as many as 200,000 garment workers took place resulting in the dismissal of thousands of union representatives from their factory jobs nda threats of legal action by employers against union leaders. CCHR legal analysis ‘September Garment Sector Strikes’ (Sep 2010) found that although most union representatives have been reinstated, as many as 800 have not been allowed to return to work.xxii It is worthy of note that the Phnom Penh Municipal authority rejected without explanation a request by the Cambodian Confederation of Unions to hold a demonstration to coincide with the arrival of UN Secretary-­‐General Ban Ki-­‐moon. The beating unconscious and arrest of Soung Sophorn during a demonstration by villagers from Boeung Kak Lake on 28 October provided the visiting Secretary-­‐General with an opportunity to observe the brutality with which demonstrations are sometimes put down in Cambodia.xxiii

Land Rights

In recent years the global increase in land prices has given rise to widespread and systematic violations of land rights in Cambodia. Since 1990, in Phnom Penh alone 133,000 people-­‐ 11% of the city’s populationxxiv -­‐ have been evicted while in 2009, at least 26 evictions displaced approximately 27,000 peoplexxv in what the European Parliament has described as a brutal policy of land-­‐grabbing.xxvi The mass evictions have facilitated the wide scale transfer of land from poor and marginalized groups to a small political and economic elite. In 2008 it was estimated that 40% of Cambodia’s poor occupy 10%xxvii of the land area of the country while a single company, owned by the wife of a CPP senator, owns 7.4%.xxviii The transfer of land is facilitated by the RGC, with land concessions routinely granted to CPP members and those with links to the RGC.State apparatus, including the police, military, and the judiciary, have played an integral role in enforcing these concessions; forcibly moving villagers from disputed land, beating protesters and imprisoning community representatives, often for extended periods of time without trial. By mid-­‐2010, it was estimated that 60 villagers affect by land conflicts had been imprisoned.xxix

Right to Life

While extrajudicial killings appear tohave abated in recent years, investigations into previous killings which were believed to have been state sponsored, such as those of Khem Sambo in 2008 and Chea Vichea in 2004, have either never taken place or have failed to identify those responsible.xxx The case of Ros Sovannarith is an important one in this respect, while an individual – Thach Saveth – has been convicted of the 2004 murder, he is widely believed to be innocent. On 2 March 2011, the Supreme Court ordered his released under judicial supervision and sent the case back to the Appeal Court to be reconsidered on the basis that he had been convicted without sufficient evidence. That his case proceeded as far as the Supreme Court for such an order to be made while he languished in jail for seven years at best suggests incompetency within the judiciary and at worst indicates its subservience and manipulation in political or sensitive cases.xxxi While extrajudicial killings seem to have stopped, the courts have taken on the role of enforcer and, in the words of the European Parliament, are used by the RGC to “crackdown on all government critics” and to “silence criticism of [the RGC’s] responses to land-­‐grabbing, corruption and border disputes”. xxxii

Fair Trial Rights and the Cambodian judiciary

A 2010 report by the CCHR’s Trial Monitoring Project -­‐ ‘Fair Trial Rights in Cambodia’ (July 2010)xxxiii highlighted a number of major concerns vis-­‐à-­‐vis respect for fair trial rights in Cambodian courts. For example, in 88% of the trials monitored the defendant had been placed in provisional detentionxxxiv; while in 32% the defendants appeared without representation.xxxv Another concern recorded regularly was the practice by judges, lawyers and court staff of answering phones during hearings.

The Cambodian judiciary’s lack of independence continues to be one of the most important factors preventing Cambodia from developing a fair, just and inclusive society, based on the rule of law. The September 2010 report by the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Cambodia, Surya Subedixxxvi found that “corruption seems to be widespread at all levels of the judiciary” while the October 2010 resolution by the European Parliament described the judicial system as “politically subservient”. Political and economic control of the judiciary fuels continuing impunity for major crimes and prevents Cambodians from fair access to land and housing rights, and recognition and protection of their civil and political rights. In his September report, the Special Rapporteur sets out a clear and robust course of legal and judicial reform for the government. The revelations in the media on 28 October 2010 that only 0.3% of the 2011 national budget, $8.5million USD in total, will be allocated to the Ministry of Justice and that of the $2.69 billion USD to be spent on government development projects in the next three years only 0.1% will go to Justice Ministry projects, confirm that the political will to reform the legal and judicial system is simply not there.xxxvii

CCHR has been an outspoken advocate calling on theUN-­‐backed Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT) to leave a legacy for Cambodia of strengthened rule of law and judicial reform. However, we have emphasized that focusing only on supply – improving the capacity of judiciary – could be dangerous; and that legacy programming must seek also to encourage demand from the Cambodian people for rule of law and respect for fair trial rights. Without public scrutiny and demand for change, capacity building of the judiciary could result in it being more effective in repressing the people it is meant to be serving.xxxviii The comments by Prime Minister Hun Sen to Secretary-­‐ General Ban on 27 October that no further cases would be allowed to go ahead at the ECCC have removed any lingering doubt as to political interference at the court.xxxix The interference by members of the RGC is not only in direct contravention of the 2003 agreement between the UN and RGC establishing the ECCCxl but, together with the allegations of corruption that have plagued the court since its inception, have underminedthe fairness and credibility of the Tribunal’s work. In September 2009, CCHR submitted an amicus curiae application to the Pre-­‐ Trial Chamber of the KRT outlining the legacy consequences of a decision by the Co-­‐Investigating Judges which permitted the use of evidence which may have obtained under torture.xli

Minority Rights

Racist sentiment continues against Vietnamese nationals living in Cambodia. Anonymous leaflets circulated in 2010 called on Cambodians to “chase out the Yuon” (a derogatory word for Vietnamese). Geographic isolation in resource rich areas of the country and a failure of the land law framework to adequately provide for collective land ownership operate to ensure that indigenous people are regular targets for forced evictions.

Meanwhile, Cambodia, a country with a recent history of benefiting from the international refugee framework itself, continues to ‘repatriate’ members of persecuted minorities fleeing Vietnam – these include Christian Montagnards and ethnic Khmer Krom. A CCHR Report‘False Friend? Exploring the Rights of the Khmer Krom in Cambodia’ (Jan 2010)xlii examined, amongst other things, the deportation of Khmer Krom from Cambodia to Vietnam and the difficulties they face receiving identification papers in Cambodia notwithstanding government statements to the effect that they seek Cambodian citizenship. On 29 November 2010, the Foreign Ministry wrote to UNHCR to announce that the Sen Sok district refugee centre, whichat the time contained 76 Montagnards refugees, would be shut at the end of 2010, warning that any Montagnards remaining at the site faced deportation. The deadline was eventually extended by 6 weeks and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees managed to find asylum for them in Canadaby February the 9th of February.xliii Though 10 Montagnards from the Sen Sok district site returned to Vietnam on the 18th February after having claims for asylum rejected by UNHCR.xliv

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Cambodians suffer from discrimination and abuse; including violence, workplace discrimination, and social and familial exclusion. In December 2010, CCHR published Cambodia’s first ever LGBT rights report.xlv

STATE OF DEMOCRACY

The 2008 National Assembly elections were contested by a total of eleven political parties, six of whom won at least one seat; the CPP took 90 seats, the SRP took 26, the HRP took 3, the Norodom Ranariddh Party and the National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia(FUNCINPEC) took two each while the League for Democracy Party took one. In total, the CPP received 3 million votes while the opposition received 2 million. It is estimated that as many of one million eligible voters were not registeredxlvi.

Royal Government of Cambodia

In the last national elections in 2008 the CPP won 58% of the popular vote, but Cambodia’s proportional representation system based upon multi-­‐member provincial constituencies gives a significant advantage to the largest party with the result that the CPP were awarded 90 of 123 seats in the National Assembly. New rulesxlvii agreed by the CPP’s previous coalition partner, FUNCINPEC, as well as the Sam Rainsy Party before the 2008 election, allowed the CPP to form a government with a simple minority rather than the two-­‐thirds support previously required. The current RGC is the first single-­‐party government in Cambodia since the 1993 Constitution was adopted.

Since taking power the separation of powers has become increasingly blurred with the CPP controlling the executive, legislative, and the judiciary. An internationally celebrated decentralization program has further tightened the CPP’s grip on power. Commune elections in 2007 resulted in the CPP’s control of all but 30 of the Kingdom’s 1,621 communes.xlviii These communes are responsible for electing the country’s 13,000 village chiefs, and vote for the country’s provincial and district council members. The CPP’s control of local administrations ensures control of voter registration resulting in an estimated one million opposition party supporters being disenfranchised – roughly the same number that separated the CPP from the combined opposition vote in the 2008 election.

With complete control of government from local to national level, the CPP is turning Cambodia into ade facto one party state. A recently leaked ‘blacklist’ shows that the CPP is color-­‐coding every household in Cambodia on the basis of political allegiance, while essential services including humanitarian relief by the Cambodian Red Cross, which is led by the wife of Prime MinisterHun Sen, are alleged to be provided or withheld on the basis of political allegiance.xlix The complete lack of accountability of the government to the people it purports to represent was poignantly displayed in November 2010, when the Prime Minister stated that no one would be held accountable for the “carelessness” that led to the deaths of 353 people in a crush on a bridge in Phnom Penh.

Opposition

There is no real viable political opposition in Cambodia and, in the face of CPP control, opposition partiesoperate to legitimize what is in effect a one-­‐party state. While the opposition parties seek to project themselves internationally as the defenders of democracy; failing leadership, limited organization, and poor funding combine to render the opposition a reactive force that criticizes government actions without offering alternative and forward-­‐looking policies. Moreover, the CPP’s ties with Vietnam have resulted in a campaign by the opposition SRP to rally nationalist fervor against Vietnam.

In 2009 three SRP members had their parliamentary immunity removed so they could face politically motivated criminal charges. Sam Rainsy, the leader of the SRP, has been convicted of four crimes, inciting racial hatred, destruction of property, forging public documents and disinformation, following attempts to establish the loss of Cambodian territory to Vietnam with the acquiescence of the RGC.With Sam Rainsy in exile and charges pending against Khem Sokha, it is looking increasingly possible that the next general election in 2013 could be contested without the leaders of the two main opposition parties. Recently, there have been discussions between the Human Rights Party and the Sam Rainsy party that they will merge to form one united opposition partyl . A negotiating team from both parties have met and discussed possibly completing the merger in April 2011li. In November 2010, former co-­‐Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh returned to politics after a two year hiatus and took back the reins of the Nationalist Party, which has since renamed itself the Norodom Ranariddh Party.lii In a recent speech, Prime Minister Hun Sen outlined his intention “to make the opposition group die”liii and pledged to arrest an unnamed critic whose recent comments in relation to civic unrest in Tunisia he deemed to amount to an attempt to foment a popular revolution in Cambodia.liv While on the 30th January the Phnom Penh Post reported that Prime Minister Hun Sen had signed off on a strategy to recruit spies in the opposition Sam Rainsy Party in a bid to undercut its support ahead of next year’s commune council elections.lv