State security officers took photos of overseas protesters to find their families in Cambodia and question them — “and this is not a threat,” Prime Minister Hun Sen explained in a speech inaugurating a new road in Preah Sihanouk province.
Prime Minister Hun Sen said politics and human rights should not get in the way of an Asean-E.U. free trade deal as at least 100 Cambodian protesters demonstrated in Brussels upon his visit and demanded the release of political prisoners and the protection of human rights.
Prime Minister Hun Sen told dissidents and analysts they would fail to uproot his family from Cambodian politics “even with 500 more lifetimes” as he made a speech to supporters after arriving in Europe for an Asean-E.U. conference.
Prime Minister Hun Sen arrived in Europe for a two-country visit as exiled former opposition leader Sam Rainsy called for a protest in Brussels on Wednesday.
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court is trying 38 defendants — one of whom is on bail — linked to the disbanded Cambodia National Rescue Party for supporting the unsuccessful attempt by Mu Sochua to return to the country to face trial in 2021.
A Phnom Penh court judge presiding over a mass trial said she had matched a defendant’s voice to a phone tap just by listening to their testimony in court, a claim challenged by the former CNRP official.
A Supreme Court official said 118 former CNRP officials would regain their political rights Wednesday and do not need to file any paperwork to make official their return to politics.
Though a five-year political ban is set to end on Wednesday, former opposition officials will likely have little opportunity to make a difference in the upcoming election, the politicians as well as analysts say.
Defense lawyers demanded the judicial police identify where Facebook comments used as evidence were posted from, in order to show they were really made by defendants in an ongoing opposition mass trial.
The parallels to 2017’s “death of democracy” have been striking as Prime Minister Hun Sen threatens to dissolve Cambodia’s largest opposition party, leaving Candlelight leaders to grapple with what — if anything — they can do about it.
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