High turnout and the abundance of parties contesting last year’s national election showed it “went well” and democracy was “not moving backward,” Prime Minister Hun Sen said he told the Bulgarian president during a tour of Europe.
On the second stop of his European tour, Prime Minister Hun Sen again asked his hosts for support in retaining trade preferences as the E.U. reviews its “Everything But Arms” deal with Cambodia over alleged violations of political and human rights.
Prime Minister Hun Sen said he hoped to be “treated fairly” by Europe, while Czech premier Andrej Babis emphasized that human rights and democracy were his nation’s foreign policy priority.
Cambodia’s draft access to information law is of “average quality” if compared to international standards, an expert who has analyzed the draft law said on Wednesday.
Anyone who has “unintentionally” become involved in exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy’s planned homecoming next month can confess and be spared punishment, Prime Minister Hun Sen said.
Cambodia has 30 tons of gold stashed in Switzerland, London and Phnom Penh; $15 billion in foreign reserves; and $4 billion more cash in hand — so it doesn’t need to be beholden to foreign aid, Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Wednesday.
Three more members of the outlawed opposition CNRP have been charged over their expressions of support for exiled party leader Sam Rainsy’s planned return, with one man arrested on Tuesday for “plotting an attack,” according to his wife and court documents.
A former bodyguard of opposition leader Sam Rainsy was left bloodied by two unknown assailants on Sunday while two members of the dissolved opposition party were arrested the day before, the victim and a rights group said on Monday.
Cambodia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry on Tuesday responded to a video from the U.S. State Department, which called opposition leader Kem Sokha’s ongoing detention without trial “baseless,” by noting that Sokha had been released from prison to the “comfort of his home” a year ago.
Unlike civil society reports that have enumerated dozens of freedom of assembly violations this year, Interior Minister Sar Kheng said on Thursday that there had been only six.
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