2023-10-18 10:39:00
A Cambodian court on Wednesday sentenced an opposition figure to 3 years in prison for posts on social media criticizing the official version of the fall of the Khmer Rouge.
The ruling party in Cambodia commemorates “Victory Day” every year on January 7, marking the country’s liberation from the yoke of the Khmer Rouge, a genocidal regime which left 2 million dead between 1975 and 1979.
The Cambodian opposition, for its part, considers this day as the beginning of the Vietnamese occupation, which will last 10 years.
In January, Thach Setha, vice-president of the Candle Party, the main opposition party, published a video on Facebook about the politically sensitive story of January 7, but his critical comments aroused the ire of the authorities, who then accused him of provocation in the run-up to the July elections.
On Wednesday, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court found Thach Setha guilty of two charges of provocation. He was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $1,000, his lawyer Sam Sokong told AFP.
“His defenders are disappointed by this decision because it is an unjust conviction,” he added, specifying that he would consult his client on a possible appeal.
Thach Setha was arrested in January and then sentenced to 18 months in prison in a bad check case.
For critics of the regime, this conviction is politically motivated and aims to remove Thach Setha from public life, a few months before the legislative elections.
The ruling party, Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party, captured 120 of the lower house’s 125 seats in a vote widely seen as a sham, with the Candle Party barred from participating.
Thach Setha is the first opposition figure to be the subject of criminal convictions since Hun Manet came to power, becoming Prime Minister in August, a position previously held by his father Hun Sen for almost forty years.
Many opposition politicians and activists were convicted and imprisoned during Hun Sen’s decades in power.
“This conviction is further proof that the Cambodian government will not rest until it has broken and buried the Candle Party and its leaders,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director of the NGO Human Rights Watch for Asia.
He called Thach Setha’s conviction for critical comments “ridiculous and outrageous.”
10/18/2023 10:37:45 – Phnom Penh (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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