The banned opposition party on Wednesday requested that the Cambodian government lift travel restrictions and reinstate high-ranking members’ passports to clear the way for nine party officials summoned by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to return to the country.
An online petition launched on Tuesday by the outlawed main opposition party calling for investigations into extrajudicial killings in Cambodia, and foreign visa sanctions and the freezing of assets of Prime Minister Hun Sen and others has gained more than 400 signers, with goals of half a million signatories.
Prime Minister Hun Sen said he encouraged banks and microlenders to confiscate property from any borrowers who participate in debt repayment refusal movements and purposefully fail to pay back loans.
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday warned that those stirring up social unrest by calling for borrowers not to repay their debts, apparently alluding to opposition CNRP figure Sam Rainsy and his supporters, would be arrested — the same day a CNRP member was jailed.
A Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge and prosecutor probed Kem Sokha on Wednesday about his political collaboration with CNRP co-founder Sam Rainsy, in light of what the court officials called Rainsy’s “violent stance.”
Opposition leader Kem Sokha was questioned in court on Wednesday about who initiated discussions to merge his former party with the Sam Rainsy Party, why the parties joined together to form the now-banned CNRP and whether foreigners were involved in its creation.
UPDATED 8 p.m. — CNRP acting president Sam Rainsy arrived in Kuala Lumpur this afternoon, an official for the party’s overseas wing said.
CNRP acting president Sam Rainsy, who had pledged to return to Cambodia today with aims of putting the nation on a democratic path, will arrive in an undisclosed Asian country this afternoon, opposition vice president Mu Sochua said.
Some international airlines said this week that they had not been warned against bringing exiled senior opposition leaders back into the country, seemingly contradicting earlier statements by the Cambodian government.
CNRP acting president Sam Rainsy left Paris’s Charles De Gaulle Airport without boarding a flight to Thailand on Thursday, claiming the airline had denied him entry.
Defense and government lawyers, and even the judge, exchanged fiery accusations over alleged prejudgement, criminal intentions, lack of evidence and use of a controversial ethnic slur in a tense first trial hearing against labor leader Rong Chhun on Friday.
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