Articles by "PHNOM PENH"
Showing posts with label PHNOM PENH. Show all posts
no image

Hello Jammu News at 8:03:00 PM 0

BANGKOK/PHNOM PENH, Apr 26: Thai immigration police have detained the leader of a Cambodian opposition group based in Denmark, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday, while a Cambodian official said the government was in discussion with Thailand on the man's extradition.
The detention comes ahead of a July general election that Prime Minister Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) looks set to win after the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was dissolved by the Supreme Court last year.
Sam Serey, head of the opposition Khmer National Liberation Front (KNLF), was arrested at an immigration centre north of the Thai capital, Bangkok, while he was trying to get his Thai visa extended, the New York-based rights group said.
"Our main concern is the safety of Sam Serey if he is deported to Cambodia," Sunai Phasuk, a senior Thailand researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Reuters in Bangkok.
"Prior to this we have seen members of the KNLF being mistreated by the Cambodian authorities when detained. The Thai government must consider international law as it proceeds."
In 2016, a Cambodian court sentenced Sam Serey in absentia to nine years in prison for plotting an attack. This month, Hun Sen accused Sam Serey and his group of plotting attacks in Cambodia, calling him a "traitor".
Sunai said Sam Serey was arrested by Thai police because he had been "blacklisted" by Cambodia over the bomb plots.
A spokesman for Thailand's national police did not reply to Reuters' request for comment.
A spokesman for Cambodia's Interior Ministry, Khieu Sopheak, said the government had been in touch with Thailand to discuss Sam Serey's extradition.
"We asked that he be deported to Cambodia," he told Reuters.
Thailand has frequently acquiesced when Cambodia has asked it to repatriate citizens with criminal convictions or those it considers a threat to national security.
In February, a woman who threw a shoe at a billboard depicting Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen was forcibly sent from Thailand to Cambodia, where she is serving a two-year prison sentence.
The opposition CNRP was dissolved after it was found guilty of plotting to overthrow the government with the help of the United States, an accusation denied by both.
Ahead of the July vote, the CPP has stepped up prosecutions of critics and political opponents. Media outlets seen as critical of the government have also been forced to shut. REUTERS
Read more »
no image

Hello Jammu News at 12:51:00 PM 0


PHNOM PENH, Apr 25: A Cambodian journalist charged with "incitement to commit a felony" over his election coverage said on Tuesday he had fled the country fearing arrest and had been given refugee asylum status by the UN refugee agency.
Aun Pheap, 54, now in the United States, was charged in August last year along with a colleague, Zsombor Peter, a Canadian, after an interview with former opposition members.
It was not immediately clear what felony they were suspected of inciting.
The pair worked for the now closed Cambodia Daily and face up to two years in prison if found guilty.
The ruling party of Prime Minister Hun Sen and its allies have waged a crackdown against what they say are critics of the government, including human rights advocates and opposition lawmakers, in the leadup to the July 29 general election.
Hun Sen is expected to easily win the vote after the main opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party was dissolved in November and dozens of its lawmakers were banned from politics.
The English-language Cambodia Daily was shut down last year after it was given a month to pay $6.3 million for years of back taxes amid the crackdown, which has also extended to independent media.
"If I go back to Cambodia, it is for sure that I will be arrested," Aun Pheap told Reuters on Tuesday from the United States, where he is attending a journalism workshop and waiting to hear back about an asylum application there.
Aun Pheap said the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) had granted him refugee status in January and that he left for the United States on March 25. He denied the charges against him.
UNHCR declined to comment on the case. "We can neither confirm nor deny even the existence of individual cases registered with UNHCR, for reasons of confidentiality and protection," it said in a statement to Reuters.
A Cambodian government spokesman declined to comment. REUTERS
Read more »
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)