Civil Society Coalitions including COMFREL, CHRAC, YCC, NICFEC, Star Kampuchea, NGO Forum on Cambodia, and others such as CSD, CCHR, Open Forum of Cambodia, CLEC and Advocacy and Policy Program of Pact Cambodia strongly concern on the safety and the violation of parliamentary rights of H.E Cheam Channy regarding the arrest by the Military Court on Feb 04.

We note that the arrest is not based on a specific legal procedures and sufficient element of crime, the prosecutor immediately issued an order of arrest the MP just a few hours after his immunity was suspended. On the other hand, the case is not flagrante delicto that the arrest is instantly needed to be done.

According to the prosecutor's warrants, there are three charged which have been made against the MP: firstly, against the order of the Co-General Commanders in Chief of the Cambodia National Armed Forces, secondly, fraud, and thirdly, conspiracy in establishing illegal armed forces. However, referring to our observation and relevant documents, there is an issue of using words such as H.E Cheam Channy just appointed spokesmen in military regions and their role is to watch inactively actions in the military affairs and report it to him to talk in the NA session and inquire the government officials, there is no foundation of "Shadow Military" as accused by the government.

Related to this case, in Cambodia, there is no any law or regulation that stated about the legality or illegality or punishment on the above case. However, in some democratic countries such as Germany, Australia, the Assembly or MPs are entitled to organize "the shadow government" in order to effectively help monitoring the performance of the government.

Base on warrants for arrest and accusations of the military court, we observe that:

1- H.E. Cheam Channy is a member of the NA which is a legislative body that is not under the power of any other bodies, so he is not under the order of the Co-general commanders in chief of the Cambodian National Armed Forces and there is no point that his activities is against that order.

2- So far, we have not seen any activity that show about the organization of the armed forces in the aim of anti-government as well as create insecurity to the country.

3- For the third case that the military court accused is the responsibility of the civil court (Fraud case). On the other hand, the promise to offer job and position to any body in the purpose to seek support from voters during pre-polling day is not fraud case.

The Civil Society Organizations appeal to the leaders of the coalition government, political parties especially the competent institutions including court withdrawal their accusation and free him from the arrest.

For more information, please contact:
▪ Mr. THUN Saray, First Representative of COMFREL, President of ADHOC;
▪ Mr. SOK Sam Oeun, Coordinator of CHRAC, Executive Director of CDP;
▪ Dr. Kek GALABRU, Chairperson of Board of Directors to NICFEC and President of LICADHO;
▪ Mr. KOUL Panha, Executive Director of COMFREL;
▪ Ph.D. HANG Puthea, Executive Director of NICFEC;
▪ Mr. MAK Sarath, YCC Coordinator;
▪ Ms. CHEA Vannath, President of Center for Social Development;
▪ Mr. NHEUK Sarin, Executive Director Star Kampuchea;
▪ Mr. KIM Sokha, President of CCHR;
▪ Mr. YENG Virak, Executive Director CLEC;
▪ Mr. POL Ham, Director of Advocacy and Policy Program of PACT Cambodia

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