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Sunday, March 21, 2010

Cambodian Parliament Member Mu Sochua Visits U.S., Speaks on Lack of Human Rights at Home

Jim Luce.
Thought Leaders and Global Citizens
March 19, 2010
huffingtonpost.com

Jean-Michel Tijerina, CEO and Founder of the Cambodia Project, insisted I must meet her.

After an hour over coffee, I fully comprehended why.

I was talking to the Cory Aquino or the Aung San Suu Kyi – of Cambodia.

And given her courageous outspokenness, I am now very concerned for her safety.

Cambodian Parliament Member Mu Sochua (Wiki) is headed back to Cambodia where she faces possible arrest and imprisonment. Yet she is headed back nonetheless.

She was in New York last week to attend Women in the World: Stories and Solutions, a conference that provides a platform for women across the world to tell the stories that have shaped their lives.

Some of the speakers in attendance are well-known, like Hillary Clinton, Diane von Furstenberg, and Queen Rania of Jordan. Other faces were less familiar but shared no less powerful stories, such as Mu Sochua.

Mu Sochua with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the Occasion of the Vital Voices Tribute to Global Women Leadership last week.

This high-powered event was sponsored by HP, Exxon Mobil, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women, and follows on the heels of the Vital Voices conference at Kennedy Center in Washington last week.

They invited internationally prominent women such as Mu Sochua to participate. In 2005, she was one of 1,000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and has received many awards for her human rights work.

Waving to her supporters, the odds are stacked against Cambodian Parliament Member Mu Sochua. Many of her contemporaries in the opposition have been assassinated.

Mu Sochua became a member of her nation’s Cabinet in 1998, after having returned in 1989 after 18 years in exile during the period called the Killing Fields. She was then one of two women in high power there.

War and genocide took me away from my native Cambodia when I had just completed high school, in 1972. War exploded in addition to genocide from 1975 to 1979.

In just three years, over one million lives were lost – a quarter of Cambodia’s people. The green rice fields of Cambodia became killing fields.

Armed conflict continued until the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1991.

She was the first woman to preside over the Office of Women’s Affairs. Prior to her, it had been considered a man’s job.

I left Cambodia as a young adolescent and returned as a mother and an activist, working with women’s networks and human rights organizations to promote peace and to include strong provisions in the 1993 Constitution to protect the human rights of women.

In 1998, I ran for a parliamentary seat in the North West of Cambodia, the most devastated region, and won. The same year, I became Minister of Women and Veterans’ Affairs — as one of only two women to join the cabinet.

I declined a ministerial post in the next government, joining the opposition party instead, and joining forces with Cambodian democrats to fight corruption and government oppression.

M.P. Mu Sochua visits a paralyzed woman denied quality health services.

But the government there is not particularly democrat and she felt the corruption and nepotism kept Cambodia’s women back. She did not wish to be co-opted, so she joined the Sam Rainsy Party, the lead opposition party in Cambodia.

As a minister, I proposed the draft law on domestic violence in Parliament, negotiated an international agreement with Thailand to curtail human trafficking in Southeast Asia, and launched a campaign to engage NGOs, law enforcement officials, and rural women in a national dialogue.

During my mandate, I campaigned widely with civil society and NGOs to encourage women at the grassroots to run as candidates for commune elections, the first of their kind in the history of Cambodia.

Cory Aquino fought with yellow ribbons, Aung San Suu Kyi fights with a dignified silence. Cambodian Parliament Member Mu Sochua leads the opposition with candles.

Although the government rejects these numbers — and critics are often challenged with misinformation charges — it appears from credible sources that Cambodia remains one of the poorest countries in Asia, with 30% of the population living below the national poverty line of 45 cents a day in 2007, with 68.2% of the population living on less than $2 a day.

Mu Sochua wants to improve Cambodia’s economy – with the help of Cambodia’s women:

My efforts have always been for long-term development which includes development of human resources for Cambodia, where most of our teachers, doctors, and judges were killed during the Khmer Rouge years.

As a woman leader I lead with the strong belief that women bring stability and peace, at home, in their communities and for the nation.

I am a strong supporter and advocate for a gender quota, although this special measure is yet to be adopted by the government.

Leaving the government to join the opposition is not the same as Joe Lieberman being a Democrat or Republican. In Cambodia, they don’t play. The head of the opposition party, Sam Rainsy, has been found guilty of destruction of public property and sentenced to two years in prison.

This trumped-up charge was followed by another three weeks later that will likely send him to at least ten years behind bars.

Armed police in Phnom Penh blocking the opposition's anti-corruption march.

Drummed-up charges and show trials are part of the Cambodian judiciary system that is directly controlled by the government. It is a direct form of political prosecution of the government’s critics.

A letter to the editor to The Phnom Penh Post this week by a prominent human rights defender points out the charges against Sam Rainsy are similar to the new electoral law in Burma which is designed solely to keep opposition leadership out of atonal elections.

Sam Rainsy, a prominent economist trained in France, was made Finance Minister following the U.N.-sponsored elections in 1993.

However, his parliamentary immunity was stripped and his former party expelled him from his government position in 1995 for his attempt to clean up corruption – forcing him to form the opposition party.

He has survived at least two assassination attempts when leading workers’ demonstrations. At one of the demonstrations his body guard died on top of him. He has since fled into exile in Paris.

Mu Sochua explained her dedication to opposition founder Sam Rainsy:

He leads with one thing in his mind: Justice. A man with strong democratic principles, he delegates power, he seeks the truth, and never shies away from threats to his life.

He has walked thousands of miles with the poor to end land grabs, he has lead hundreds of demonstrations to fight for workers’ rights.

And he has risked his life more than once to end corruption which is calculated at close to US$500 million per year according to the U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia.

Since 1995, Mu Sochua told me — as we sat in the safety of the Time-Warner Building opposite Columbus Circle in New York City — that 185 activists from her opposition party have been killed.

She casually mentioned that just to care for that number of bodies was a burden for her and her followers. As hardened as I have become by my travels, I was shocked.

More than once I have come face to face with armed police and military. My strategy for self-protection is to remain vocal, visible and high profile.

The day I joined the opposition party was the day the leader of the workers’ movement — Chea Vichea — was assassinated. He was the founder of the opposition in Cambodia.

The documentary of his life and death, Who Killed Chea Vichea?“, will premiere March 27 at the Frederick Film Festival in Maryland. Chea was shot in broad daylight by assassins, but the government arrested two other men and imprisoned them for their supposed crime.

I was given a private screening of this moving film by its director Bradley Cox and will write its review shortly. Images of Buddhist priests crying as they watch the funeral procession are haunting.

Mu Sochua receives the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for leadership in human rights from Allida Black, Director of the Eleanor Roosevelt Project at George Washington University. U.S. Mission Photo: Eric Bridiers.

The reason I fear for Mu Sochua’s safety is because the Government of Cambodia wants her gone. Try to follow this story – she is charged with “defamation.” As I understand it:

The Prime Minster insulted my new friend Mu Sochua. She insisted he apologize. He said, “forget-about-it – just sue me!” So she did.

However, her lawyer was immediately threatened with being disbarred, so he had to drop her as a client. The case was then closed for ‘lack of evidence.’

But the case was far from over. The Prime Minster then took her to court – for having sued him. He claimed she had committed a ‘conspiracy to defame his reputation.’ Unbelievable.

She lost this suit in June of 2009. She was told by the court she must pay a $4,000 fine. She refused and appealed – and lost again in November 2009.

Now — about the time she will return home — it goes to the Supreme Court there. The Court is controlled by the Cambodian Government, where she will most probably lose again.

“If I lose, I will not pay that fine,” she told me defiantly. I will go to jail first!”

She faces this verdict upon her return. I call on the world press to monitor this closely, and for the people of the world to reach out to their Cambodian Embassies and let them know: The Whole World Is Watching.

Mu Sochua has a 25-year history now of advocacy. As a Member of the Cambodian Parliament and mother of three, Mu Sochua has played a crucial role in the empowerment of women and has worked tirelessly to lead the fight against gender-based violence.

Her political issues are both specific and universal:

Human Rights of Women. She campaigns widely to defend the human rights of women through the adoption and full implementation of legislation against gender-based violence.

Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Women and Children. She travels around the country to sensitize villagers to the danger of trafficking, pursues the prosecution of traffickers through a strong network of local organizations, and leads the fight against corruption of officials.

Women in Politics. She is the principal leader of the women’s movement for transformative leadership, campaigning widely for legislation and policies to promote women’s participation and positions in decision-making.

The Urban Poor. She advocates for the rights of squatters to improve their living conditions and gain lease-hold rights to land. She also supports the development of communities for squatters with schools, health centers, sanitation, and access to employment.

Land Rights. She advocates for the rights of tenants in her constituency of Kampot and throughout Cambodia, investigating evictions and land-grabbing first-hand, listening to villagers’ stories, and supporting formal complaints.

There are said to have been at least 11,600 victims affected by land disputes in 2009. When urban communities are forcibly evicted and relocated to remote areas lacking proper sanitation, jobs, and food security, female heads of household suffer the most.

Malnurishment of infants and children under five double. Relocation of rural communities are even more dangerous to women as the families who are already vulnerable are further facing more violence as they are relocated to less secure, unfamiliar areas.

Forced evictions and illegal economic concessions happen almost on a daily basis, with villagers arrested without arrest warrants and leading the poor to chronic poverty and food insecurity.

Civil society and local human rights organizations working to empower the landless are often subject of government scrutiny, law suits, and illegal detention.

Cambodian Parliament Member Mu Sochua, whose is in danger for leading the opposition, with Jean-Michel Tijerina of the Cambodia Project and me in the safety of New York City. Photo courtesy of Nozomi Terao.

Healthcare for women in Cambodia itself is beyond comprehension to me. According to Mu Sochua:

Maternal mortality rates in Cambodia are higher than any other country in the region although some progress has been made in the at five years.

There are currently over 4,000 deaths of women during delivery or five women die in childbirth per day, and one woman dies every five hours from childbirth. An average of 19,780 children die per year — with 55 dying every day during the first year of life.

Education is also a mess. According to Mu Sochua’s research:

The literacy rate among women are 55.6%; only 12.6% of girls in rural areas attend lower school and 4.1% of rural girls attend lower secondary schools. Drop out rates also at primary level is at 50%.

Last month the organization that I founded, Orphans International Worldwide (OIWW) presented its 2010 Distinguished Global Citizenship Awards for Helping Humanity. U.S. Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney and Dionysia-Theodora Avgerinopoulou, a Member of the Hellenic Parliament, were awarded.

It is obvious to me that this Cambodian Member of Parliament, the Hon. Mu Sochua, must receive my organization’s 2011 Distinguished Global Citizenship Awards for Helping Humanity. It is up to the world to make sure she is not in prison so she can receive it.

Labels: Mu Sochua, Sam Rainsy Party

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Crusader Rowing Upstream in Cambodia

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By SETH MYDANS (The New York Times)

Incumbent Mu Sochua, 55, is already campaigning for the 2013 parliamentary election

MAK PRAING, CAMBODIA — “I’m going to get my votes!” cried Mu Sochua as she stepped into a slender rowboat, holding one side for balance. “One by one.”

She was crossing a small river here in southern Cambodia on a recent stop in her never-ending campaign for re-election to Parliament, introducing herself to rural constituents who may never have seen her face.

The most prominent woman in Cambodia’s struggling political opposition, Mu Sochua, 55, is campaigning now, three years before the next election, because she is almost entirely excluded from government-controlled newspapers and television.

“Only 35 percent of voters know who won the last election,” she said.

She has no time to lose.

Ms. Mu Sochua is a member of a new generation of women who are working their way into the political systems of countries across Asia and elsewhere, from local councils to national assemblies and cabinet positions.

A former minister of women’s affairs, she did as much as anyone to put women’s issues on the agenda of Cambodia as it emerged in the 1990s from decades of war and mass killings. But she lost her public platform in 2004 when she broke with the government, and she is now finding it as difficult to promote her ideas as it is to simply gain attention as a candidate.

She says her signal achievement, leading the way for women into thousands of government positions, has done little to advance women’s issues in a stubbornly male-dominated society.

And like dissidents and opposition figures in many countries, she has found herself with a new burden: battling for her own rights. As she has risen in prominence, the political stands she has taken have become a greater liability to her than gender bias has been.

Most recently, she has been caught in a bizarre tit-for-tat exchange of defamation suits with the country’s domineering prime minister, Hun Sen, in which, to no one’s surprise, she was the loser.

It started last April here in Kampot Province, her constituency, when Mr. Hun Sen referred to her with the phrase “cheung klang,” or “strong legs,” an insulting term for a woman in Cambodia.

She sued him for defamation; he stripped her of her parliamentary immunity and sued her back. Her suit was dismissed in the politically docile courts. In August she was convicted of defaming the prime minister and fined 16.5 million riel, or about $4,000, which she has refused to pay.

“Now I live with the uncertainty about whether I’m going to go to jail,” she said in a recent interview. “I’m not going to pay the fine. Paying the fine is saying to all Cambodian women, ‘What are you worth? A man can call you anything he wants, and there is nothing you can do.”’

This gesture is one of the few ways she has left to champion the rights of women, the central passion of her public life.

As an outspoken opponent of the prime minister, she has found, her participation taints any group, action or demonstration with the stigma of political opposition.

“My voice kills the movement,” she said. “It’s my failure. Now I am the face of the opposition, a woman’s face in opposition. Women say, ‘We believe in you. We admire you. But we can’t be with you because the movement will die.”’

During her six years as minister of women’s affairs, Ms. Mu Sochua campaigned against child abuse, marital rape, violence against women, human trafficking and the exploitation of female workers. She helped draft the country’s law against domestic violence.

In part because of her work, she said, “People are aware about gender. It’s a new Cambodian word: ‘gen-de.’ People are aware that women have rights.”

But where political empowerment of women is concerned, she said, quantity has not produced quality, and prominence has not translated into progress for a women’s agenda.

Over the years, Ms. Mu Sochua has worked with nongovernmental groups to field thousands of candidates in local elections. Largely because of her activism, there are now 27 women in a National Assembly of 123 seats.

But 21 of these are members of the governing Cambodian People’s Party — window dressing, she said — and have little impact, following the party line like their male counterparts.

“They don’t speak out,” she said. “It’s hard to talk about this — I don’t want to antagonize women — but if women suffer from our silence, we are responsible. What are we doing to make their lives better?

“This is where women can hurt women. They are in politics, but they are part of the problem by keeping silent.”

Cambodia is still a traditional society in which women are expected to behave demurely and subordinate themselves to men. Schooled in the United States, Ms. Mu Sochua said she had to keep an eye on her own Westernized ideas and behavior, to be “careful I don’t push things too far.”

The daughter of a well-to-do merchant in Phnom Penh, she was sent to study in the West at the age of 12, ending up at the University of California, Berkeley, where she earned a master’s degree in social work and thrived on the culture of outspokenness of the 1970s.

“When I hit San Francisco, I knew that that was my city,” she said. “I began to shine. I let my hair grow. I looked like a hippie.”

She met her future husband, an American, when both were assisting Cambodian refugees on the Thai border after the fall of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. Since 1989 they have lived together in Cambodia, where he works for the United Nations. They have three grown children living in the United States and Britain.

“I have to be very, very careful about what I bring from the West, to promote women’s rights within the context of a society that is led by men,” she said. “In the Cambodian context, it’s women’s lib. It’s feminism. It’s challenging the culture, challenging the men.”

She has this in mind as she walks through the villages of her constituency, a woman with power but a woman nonetheless. “I walk into a cafe, and I have to think twice, how to be polite to the men,” she said. “I have to ask if I can enter. This is their turf. I am a woman, and I should be sitting in one of these little shops and selling things.”

And so she paused the other day at the stoop of a little cafe here in this riverside village, an open-fronted noodle shop where men sat in the midday heat on red plastic chairs.

She had succeeded in halting a sand-dredging project that was eroding riverbanks here, and she wanted the men to know that she had been working on their behalf.

“I came here to inform you that you got a result from the government,” she told the men, showing them a legal document. “I want to inform you that you have a voice. If you see something wrong, you can stand up and speak about it.”

Asked afterward what it was like to have a woman fighting his battles, Mol Sa, 37, a fisherman, said, “She speaks up for us, so I don’t think she’s any different from a man. Maybe a different lady couldn’t do it, but she can do it because she is strong and not afraid.”

Fear was a theme as Ms. Mu Sochua moved through the countryside here. At another village, where cracks were appearing in the sandy embankment, a widow named Pal Nas, 78, said the big dredging boats had scared her.

“I’m afraid that if I speak out, they will come after me,” she said. “In the Khmer Rouge time, they killed all the men. When night comes, I don’t have a man to protect me. It’s more difficult if you are a woman alone.”

Mr. Hun Sen’s party holds power throughout most of rural Cambodia, and Ms. Mu Sochua said that party agents kept an eye on her as she campaigned.

Before she boarded the little boat to cross the river, a man on a motorcycle took photographs of her and her companions with a cellphone, then drove away.

Across the river, a farmer greeted her warmly, climbing a tree to pick ripe guavas for her.

“I voted for you,” he said as he handed her the fruit. “But don’t tell anyone.”

Labels: Election, Mu Sochua, Sam Rainsy Party, SRP

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Video Clip: Mu Sochua's US Human Rights Commission Testimony 09/10/2009

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Cambodian Parliamentarian Mu Sochua Testifies Before U.S. House of
Representatives Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission - Meets with U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akkqkMUtIjw

Presenting testimony before members of Congress during the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing ‘Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Cambodia’ on September 10, Parliamentarian and advocate for the Cambodian people Mu Sochua called attention to rights abuses and corruption in her native nation. A Vital Voices Global Leadership Award Honoree for her work on sex trafficking, Sochua was recognized for her courage and activism by Commission Co-Chairmen and U.S. Representatives James McGovern and Frank Wolf. Representative Jim Moran, who requested that the hearing be held, was in attendance alongside Representatives Ed Royce, Joseph Cao, and Niki Tsongas.

Labels: Human Rights, Mu Sochua, US Congress

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Cambodian opposition MPs stripped of parliamentary immunity

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Cambodian opposition MPs stripped of parliamentary immunity

Cambodia's opposition says it's under attack because of what it describes as a new round of politically motivated lawsuits and a vote by the National Assembly which has resulted in two opposition MPs being stripped of their parliamentary immunity.

Mu Sochua, former Cambodian minister of women's affairs, and Ho Vann, a Phnom Penh municipality representative, had their immunity lifted after a single show-of-hands vote by the National Assembly. They both face defamation lawsuits in Cambodia's notoriously corrupt courts.

Presenter: Liam Cochrane
Speaker: Mu Sochua, Cambodian opposition MP

COCHRANE: High profile opposition MP Mu Sochua has been locked in a battle of lawsuits with Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen for some weeks now.

But, now that the National Assembly has voted to remove the Parliamentary immunity from Mu Sochua and her fellow party member Ho Vann, effectively, the gloves are off...

SOCHUA: The procedures where the most undemocratic because we were not allowed a chance to speak at all and there was a vote by raising of hands, lifting immunity of two members of parliament at the same time in one vote.

COCHRANE: Let's deal with them separately, why was your immunity lifted?

SOCHUA: My case is from a lawsuit by the Prime Minister against me for defamation. The Prime Minister pointed very clearly at me when he went to my constituency and talked about a number of parliament, a women from the opposition party and called me by a name that is not acceptable to call me, he called me a hustler. Second he said that I went and grabbed men and thirdly it was related to meetings that I went to and I was not allowed to go in, and he said that I had a very thick skin. And fourth, which is very, very serious is that I incite my constituents and people against the government.

COCHRANE: And can you tell me about the other member of parliament whose immunity was lifted? Who was that and why was the immunity lifted?

SOCHUA: My colleague, Mr Ho Vann is a member of parliament elected in the municipality of Phnom Penh. He made a comment by responding to the media about honorary degrees that were received by some military officials. His comment was that he didn't think that these degrees were valuable, but if they were valuable then the quality of degrees should allow the numbers of the armed forces to help and then to protect the nation.

COCHRANE: Without parliamentary immunity you face the court as an ordinary citizen, what chances do you think you'll have of finding justice at the court?

SOCHUA: The chance of me getting justice is very close to zero.

COCHRANE: Mu Sochua you've said previously that you would rather go to jail rather than pay a fine if you are found guilty of this defamation charge. Are you still feeling that same way?

SOCHUA: Definitely I am very determined to face the court and I will not be surprised if the court finds me guilty. My stance will not change, I am ready, my conscience is clear about wanting justice, wanting a judicial system that can protect citizens of Cambodia. So I am ready, I am preparing to go to jail.

COCHRANE: There are rumours around at the moment that you are about to flee the country or you may have already fled the country. Is there any truth to those rumours?

SOCHUA: I have always been very transparent that I am not fleeing the country. I came back to Cambodia in 1989, I have never gone back to America to live. My country is Cambodia, I said from the very beginning that I will not flee, I will come back to face the courts.

COCHRANE: Mu Sochua, just finally, this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened. In the past opposition leader Sam Rainsy and Cheam Channy and others have had their immunity stripped, and in Cheam Channy's case gone to jail. Do you think this is a political action against you.

SOCHUA: Yes it's a political action against the opposition. Cambodia is walking more than one step backwards, democracy in Cambodia is in real jeopardy. I think the world community cannot ignore this and especially the government of Australia. What is Australia doing when democracy in Cambodia is facing such a serious set of going back to dictatorship?

COCHRANE: A representative from Cambodia's National Assembly was not available for comment on the issue.

Labels: hun sen, immunity, Mu Sochua, Sam Rainsy Party

Saturday, June 20, 2009

SRP WILL NOT REPLACE MU SOCHUA

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SRP WILL NOT REPLACE MU SOCHUA

June 20, 2009

While pushing for the lifting of Mu Sochua’s parliamentary immunity, Prime Minister Hun Sen has been suggesting that she be replaced as a National Assembly member at the initiative of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party.

On behalf of the SRP, I can assure the Cambodian people and all Cambodia’s friends that Mu Sochua’s seat at the National Assembly will remain hers until the end of her legal term and that no replacement will be appointed.

Mu Sochua is the victim of an injustice. Hun Sen wants to eliminate her from Cambodia’s political landscape. It is a blatant abuse of power that is only possible with a subservient judiciary and a rubber-stamp parliament.

Replacing Mu Sochua would be like politically burying her alive and complying with Hun Sen’s insane desire.

When, in 2005, Cheam Channy, another SRP National Assembly member, was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and subsequently put in jail following a trumped-up criminal charge, there were also suggestions that he be replaced. But it was clear to us that replacing Cheam Channy would mean that we would accept the injustice done to him, let our colleague down, contribute to his political elimination and compound a personal tragedy. We proudly accepted to temporarily and practically lose a seat, a voice and a vote at the National Assembly.

We were right to stick to our principles. In 2006, Cheam Channy was released from prison, his immunity restored, and he recovered his seat at the National Assembly.

We are confident that adopting a similar position in the case of Mu Socha now is the right thing to do.

The same observations apply to the case of countless SRP-affiliated elected commune councilors, including commune chiefs, who have been arrested and sent to jail for politically-motivated charges. For instance, Mu Sochua’s case cannot be dissociated from the case of Tuot Saron, the SRP-affiliated elected chief of Pong Ro commune in Kampong Thom province’s Barai district. Tuot Saron is currently and unjustly in jail. But he will not be replaced. We will do all we can to help free him and to re-install him as commune chief as we are fighting to render justice to Mu Sochua.

Sam Rainsy
Member of Parliament
SRP President

Labels: Hu Sen, Mu Sochua, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Friday, May 01, 2009

Mu Sochua-Hun Sen: prime Minister Portrays Himself as Victim, NGOs Condemn His Threats

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Mu Sochua-Hun Sen: prime Minister Portrays Himself as Victim, NGOs Condemn His Threats

Phnom Penh (Cambodia). 24/09/2008: Mu Sochua, Sam Rainsy Party MP, during prime Minister Hun Sen’s press conference, after the opening session of the new parliamentary mandate. ©John Vink/ Magnum

By Duong Sokha, with LLG

In a speech he gave on Wednesday April 29th in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s prime Minister presented himself as a victim in the case pitting him against Mu Sochua, the Sam Rainsy Party MP, who lodged a complaint against him on grounds of defamation and insults. Hun Sen particularly reminded his opponent that having her parliamentary immunity lifted would be easy, since a majority of MPs are affiliated to the Cambodian People’s Party and therefore agree with the cause of the head of the executive power. Several organisations from the Cambodian civil society reacted strongly and condemned pressure and threats coming from the ruling power against the opposition.

“I am a simple victim and only wish to defend myself before the Law and find justice”, the Cambodian prime Minister declared loud and clear before an audience composed of brand new graduates. Hun Sen said he did “not despise any woman at all” and said he did not attack Mu Sochua directly. The words he said in Kampot at the beginning of April about a woman behaving in a “provocative way”, who “lunged towards a man to kiss him, so much so that the buttons [of her blouse] popped out”, were not about the SRP MP at all, he said…

The prime Minister insisted on justifying the fact that he filed a lawsuit in turn, against the opposition MP. “On Thursday [April 23], she held a press conference [on that case]. Therefore, I have enough evidence. I signed on Friday [April 24] a complaint [against her] for defamation before the start of the judicial proceedings [launched by Mu Sochua against Hun Sen]”, he declared, adding that his complaint was also aimed at Mu Sochua’s lawyer, Kong Sam Onn, who was with his client at her press conference. The prime Minister is asking each of the concerned persons for a compensation of ten million riels (2,500 USD). He announced he would give the money to charity in favour of orphans.

Hun Sen also said that if justice asked for the suspension of his own parliamentary immunity, he would be ready to accept it, and pointed out that such a procedure against him had few chances of succeeding. “I do not believe that MPs for the Cambodian People’s Party [CPP, going strong with 90 seats out of 123 in the National Assembly] will vote, by a show of hands, the suspension of my immunity. Like for Lok Chumteav Men Sam On [deputy prime Minister, CPP], they will not do it”, Hun Sen bet with confidence. However, Cambodia’s “strongman” did not fail to mention that if justice issued a similar request against Mu Sochua, having it approved would be easy, since the votes of almost two thirds are already secured.

Several Cambodian organisations for the defence of Human rights and the observation of political life reacted strongly, even before this very speech given by the head of government, to the threat to lift the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) deputy’s parliamentary immunity.

“To issue arbitrary threats on the suspension of Mu Sochua’s parliamentary immunity without any evidence she may have committed any crime is a flagrant act of intimidation against an opposition MP”, president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR) Ou Virak said in a communiqué dated April 29th and co-signed by nine local organisations. “This clearly aims at reducing her to silence and deterring her from claiming her legitimate right to file a lawsuit for defamation.”

For Kek Galabru, the president of the NGO for the defence of Human rights in Cambodia LICADHO, this “threat against Mu Sochua is yet another example of the dangerous milieu opposition MPs are faced with in Cambodia”. “MPs from all parties should be free to exercise their profession, to represent the interest of their voters and to express themselves in public without the fear of being arrested or detained arbitrarily”, she said, while Yeng Virak, director of the Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC) stressed that parliamentary immunity was “not something that can be lifted randomly by representatives of the government”.

“If Mu Sochua’s parliamentary immunity is lifted, this will simply prove that what she aims at showing is right: that opposition MPs are not free to do their job without fearing intimidation or persecution”, says Koul Panha, director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (COMFREL). For her part, Thida Khus, executive director of the Silaka organisation, deplores a “threat that is [...] sad in many ways [...] against one of the rare active female politicians, in a country where women’s voices are frequently silenced or ignored”.

Reached by Ka-set, SRP MP for Kampot Mu Sochua simply indicated that she intended to leave justice to sort that case and that she would accept the eventual suspension of her parliamentary immunity, should judicial authorities decide to lift it. “I trust the will of MPs, of all the parties and I shall respect their decision”, she said. Her lawyer Kong Sam Onn explained that he only acted as he felt he should, as a lawyer, and denied having said any defamatory words about the Cambodian prime Minister.

Labels: hun sen, Mu Sochua

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• Khmer Rouge Tribunal vs. Karmic Justice
• Lending Scheme to Bring Solar to Cambodia’s Poor
• In Cambodia, brush back against street sweeps
• 1994 Murder of Aussie by Khmer Rouge Re-Examined
• Cambodia's Great Internet Firewall?
• Sam Rainsy charges draw criticism
• Cambodia Cooking: Czech Out These Angkor Nuts

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Editorial | Articles about Cambodia | Khmer

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Cambodian Parliament Member Mu Sochua Visits U.S., Speaks on Lack of Human Rights at Home

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Crusader Rowing Upstream in Cambodia

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Video Clip: Mu Sochua's US Human Rights Commission Testimony 09/10/2009

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Cambodian opposition MPs stripped of parliamentary immunity

Cambodian opposition MPs stripped of parliamentary immunity

Saturday, June 20, 2009

SRP WILL NOT REPLACE MU SOCHUA

SRP WILL NOT REPLACE MU SOCHUA

Friday, May 01, 2009

Mu Sochua-Hun Sen: prime Minister Portrays Himself as Victim, NGOs Condemn His Threats

Mu Sochua-Hun Sen: prime Minister Portrays Himself as Victim, NGOs Condemn His Threats

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