LIBRARY

8 June 2018

We, the undersigned civil society groups, express grave concern regarding the latest government decision to heighten state surveillance, censorship and criminalisation of online expression in Cambodia, in contravention of constitutional and international human rights guarantees. On 28 May 2018, the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Information and Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications issued an inter-ministerial prakas on website and social media control which became public this week.

This ministerial order threatens the privacy rights and freedom of expression of every single internet and social media user in Cambodia and further diminishes the limited space left for public debate following months of attacks on media freedoms.

9 May 2018

We, the undersigned civil society groups, condemn the latest blow to press freedom in Cambodia, with the opaque sale of The Phnom Penh Post, and the new owner’s immediate interference in the paper’s editorial independence, which compelled 13 senior staff and reporters to resign and led to the sacking of the paper’s Editor-in-Chief.

This is just the latest in a series of attacks which have devastated Cambodia’s media landscape since mid-2017. The Phnom Penh Post was Cambodia’s last remaining independent English-Khmer language daily, and its change of ownership raises serious questions about the paper’s continued independence.

30 March 2018

Thousands of Cambodian children were adopted overseas between the late 1980s and 2009. During that time it emerged that many of the adopted children were not orphans but had parents who placed them in orphanages because of extreme poverty. Their parents placed them there on the understanding that they would return home at a later date. They did not consent to their children's adoption. Instead, orphanage directors, with the help of local authorities, created documents falsely stating that the children were orphans or had been abandoned.

When evidence of this came to light, many countries suspended the adoption of children from Cambodia and in 2009 Cambodia itself suspended them. The parents of the children adopted abroad were often illiterate and lacked awareness of their rights or of where to turn to for help and so were unable to find out what had happened to their children.

21 February 2018

We, the undersigned organizations and communities, express our grave concern regarding the Royal Government of Cambodia's proposed amendments to the Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia, as well as the proposed introduction of a lèse-majesté offense to Cambodia’s Criminal Code. These proposed amendments constitute a severe threat to human rights and fundamental freedoms, and are clearly designed to further criminalize any individual or entity that dares to express legitimate dissent. We are deeply concerned by this cynical attempt to deny the Cambodian people the fundamental freedoms to which they are entitled, and call for the outright rejection of these proposed amendments.

30 January 2018

We, the undersigned civil society organizations (CSOs), call for the charges against three of Cambodia’s most prominent civil society leaders – Mr. Pa Nguon Teang, Venerable But Buntenh, and Mr. Moeun Tola – to be immediately dropped. These baseless charges are clearly a form of intimidation and harassment, aimed at further silencing Cambodian civil society and human rights defenders.

9 December 2017

On the eve of International Human Rights Day (IHRD) we, the undersigned members of Cambodian civil society, call for an end to government attacks on human rights defenders and civil society groups and the lifting of unjustifiable restrictions on fundamental freedoms.

Respect for fundamental freedoms is a basic requirement for a functioning civil society. It is also guaranteed by the Cambodian constitution and international law.

Civil society organisations (CSOs) have been longstanding contributors to Cambodia’s post-war peace-building efforts, development and the promotion of human rights and democratic principles. The legitimate work of CSOs must be valued and protected as a fundamental pillar of sustainable development, rather than being wrongly characterised as a threat to national security.

Despite this, the space for civil society has been dramatically diminished in recent months.

2 December 2017

To mark the global campaign 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, running from November 25 to December 10, LICADHO is publishing a new report No Punishment, No Protection: Cambodia’s Response to Domestic Violence. It presents evidence of the failure of the Cambodian justice system to properly protect victims of domestic violence or to punish the perpetrators.

It is based on a review of 237 closed domestic violence cases, investigated by LICADHO between the beginning of 2014 and the end of 2016. More than 40 percent of the cases ended with the victim of violence remaining in the violent relationship. Only one fifth led to criminal proceedings being brought against the perpetrator. The remaining cases ended in separation or divorce but no criminal proceedings.

The report explores why so many cases end with victims and abusers remaining together. It finds that family pressure, religious beliefs, poverty and an under-resourced and corrupt justice system all play a part. It also finds that authority figures, such as commune chiefs and police, commonly play a role in bringing about reconciliation between partners.

14 November 2017

We, the undersigned Cambodian and international civil society organisations (CSOs), call for the immediate release of Hun Vannak and Doem Kundy, environmental activists affiliated with the recently deregistered NGO, Mother Nature Cambodia (MNC), who have been wrongfully detained for over two months on spurious charges. We are deeply concerned by the arbitrary nature of their arrest and pre-trial detention, which appears to be an attempt to stifle and punish their legitimate work as environmental human rights defenders.

15 August 2017

Tep Vanny, one of Cambodia’s most prominent land activists and human rights defenders, will have spent one year in prison on 15 August for defending her community and exercising her human rights. We, the undersigned, condemn her arbitrary imprisonment. We call for her convictions to be overturned, for all ongoing politically motivated and unsubstantiated charges against her to be dropped, and for her immediate release from prison.

27 July 2017

We, the undersigned, call on the Court of Appeal to overturn the unjust conviction of Ms. Tep Vanny on charges of intentional violence with aggravating circumstances based on her peaceful activism at a 2013 protest, for which she received a draconian sentence of two years and six months’ imprisonment on 23 February 2017. The Court of Appeal will hear Ms. Tep Vanny's appeal against conviction tomorrow. On 15 August 2017, Ms. Tep Vanny will have spent one year in detention; her imprisonment is a clear attempt to silence one of Cambodia’s most fearless and outspoken defenders of human rights ahead of the national elections in July 2018.

8 July 2017

One year after the murder of Kem Ley, we, the undersigned civil society groups, believe that justice has not yet been served for the late political analyst and the family, friends and colleagues he left behind.

The well-known political analyst and anti-corruption campaigner was shot dead at point blank range on 10 July 2016 while drinking coffee in a Phnom Penh petrol station. There has been no transparency in the murder investigation, and there are still many unanswered questions in the case.

3 July 2017

As Cambodia’s human rights situation continues to backslide, exposing and speaking out against state-perpetrated abuses is ever more crucial. In the last two years, however, human rights defenders and other critical or independent voices have been among the main victims of Cambodia’s fractious political situation.

In this latest in a series of briefing papers, LICADHO sets out threats facing those who stand up for human rights in today’s Cambodia. Long-standing tactics used to silence human rights defenders – judicial harassment by a politicized court system; state-sponsored violence; and intolerance of peaceful protest – have been reinforced by new incapacitating laws and targeted digital surveillance. Although the examples presented in this paper are by no means exhaustive, taken together they provide a snapshot into the kinds of abuses that human rights defenders have been routinely subjected to in Cambodia over the last two years.

28 June 2017

We, the undersigned, condemn the discriminatory and arbitrary denial of medical care to three of the five ‘#Freethe5KH’ detainees at Phnom Penh’s CC1 (Prey Sar) prison facility. Mr. Ny Sokha, Mr. Nay Vanda, and Mr. Yi Soksan have finally been granted access to doctors from the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO), after such access had been arbitrarily restricted since April 2017. All three detainees experienced a serious deterioration in their health while the restrictions were in place. They have now been held in pre-trial detention for 426 days, along with their colleague at the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC), Ms. Lim Mony, and Deputy Secretary General of the National Election Committee and former ADHOC staff member, Mr. Ny Chakrya.

9 May 2017

We, the undersigned Cambodian and international civil society organizations, condemn the removal by district and commune police authorities of banners calling for the release of six human rights defenders. Banners were removed from the offices of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC), the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) and Mother Nature in Koh Kong’s Smach Meanchey commune on 2 May 2017, as well as from three residences in Koh Kong province’s Srae Ambel district on 3 May 2017.

23 March 2017

Three weeks after a four-hour trial hearing, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court today convicted Oeuth Ang – otherwise known as ‘Chuob Samlab’ – of the premeditated murder of prominent political analyst Dr. Kem Ley as well as illegal possession of a weapon under Articles 200 and 490 of Cambodia’s Criminal Code. Presiding judge Leang Samnat sentenced Oeuth Ang to life imprisonment.

Despite compelling evidence that Oeuth Ang was the gunman who shot and killed Dr. Kem Ley, the lack of transparency in the investigation of Dr. Kem Ley’s death, the brevity of the trial proceedings, and the failure to fully investigate motive, potential accomplices and the circumstances of Oeuth Ang's arrest, raise serious concerns about the adequacy of this criminal process. In light of the inadequacies in the investigation into Dr. Kem Ley’s death, as well as in the trial proceedings, we, the undersigned civil society organizations, call for the establishment of an independent Commission of Inquiry into the circumstances of his murder, in accordance with international best practices.

5 March 2017

We, the undersigned international and Cambodian civil society organizations, strongly condemn the brazen attacks carried out against Cambodian human rights defenders over recent weeks, in what appears to be a deliberate strategy by the Cambodian authorities to punish and deter any expression of dissent ahead of the upcoming commune and national elections, scheduled for June 2017 and July 2018 respectively.

23 February 2017

We, the undersigned civil society groups, condemn today’s unjust conviction and sentencing of Tep Vanny and the latest outrageous violence perpetrated by para-police against her supporters outside Phnom Penh Municipal Court.

7 February 2017

Two human rights defenders have been summonsed as suspects in relation to violence that occurred when para-police blocked a peaceful World Habitat Day march in October 2016. During the altercation, both men – LICADHO’s Monitoring Manager Am Sam Ath, who was monitoring the event at the time, and Boeung Kak Lake community representative Chan Puthisak, who was documenting the march – were badly beaten by para-police in targeted attacks against them.

21 January 2017

Two months after the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s (WGAD) ruled that the ongoing detention of ADHOC staff members Lim Mony, Ny Sokha, Nay Vanda, and Yi Soksan, and NEC Deputy Secretary-General, Ny Chakrya is arbitrary, we, the undersigned civil society organizations, reiterate our call upon the Cambodian authorities to implement the decision of the WGAD and immediately release them. Nearly nine months after the five were first detained, Cambodia has taken no action to cease or remedy its unlawful treatment of the five, and remains in a continuing state of non-compliance with its binding legal obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Our organizations condemn in the strongest terms the failure of the Cambodian authorities to implement the recommendations of the WGAD.

18 December 2016

FIDH, OMCT, CCHR, ADHOC and LICADHO welcome the recent Opinion adopted by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) that recognises the arbitrary nature of the detention of human rights defenders Ny Chakrya, Ny Sokha, Yi Soksan, Nay Vanda, and Lim Mony. Our organisations call upon the Cambodian authorities to implement the Opinion of the WGAD by releasing the five human rights defenders immediately and providing them appropriate compensation.