Sunday, 7 March 2010

Quashing dissent in Cambodia: Opposition leader faces prison

http://2ser.podomatic.com/
via CAAI News Media

March 06, 2010

The leader of the main opposition party in Cambodia, Sam Rainsy, is facing an eighteen-year jail term in relation to a symbolic protest carried out at the Vietnamese border last year.

The Sam Rainsy Party has accused the Prime Minister, HUN SEN, of misusing the court system in order to block their leader from standing in the 2013 elections.

Cambodian human rights observers say the new charges are a further example of how the ruling Cambodian People’s Party is seeking to rid the country of opposition dissent.

The indictment follows a series of cases that have shed light on Cambodia’s rapidly shrinking political space, as the People’s Party seeks to tighten its grip on power.

Ambassador Julio Jeldres is the official biographer of the King Father of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk and a research fellow at Monash University.

He spoke to 2-SER’s Joel Robert Keep.

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