PHNOM PENH: A Cambodian court handed out jail terms Thursday (Mar 17) to 20 opposition figures including exiled leader Sam Rainsy, who condemned the judgment as a fresh bid by strongman ruler Hun Sen to quash dissent.
Rainsy has lived in France since 2015 to avoid jail on a number of convictions he says are politically motivated, including a 25-year sentence passed in March last year.
The court jailed Rainsy and six other senior opposition figures for 10 years, and 13 more activists for five years. One other activist was given a suspended five-year sentence.
“The justice system has again been used as a blunt political tool in an attempt to quash opposition to Hun Sen’s dictatorship. Opposing dictators is a duty, not a crime,” Rainsy wrote on his Twitter account.
There were scuffles outside the court as security officers tried to confiscate a banner from the defendants’ wives and supporters, knocking some of them to the ground.
“After the verdict was announced, my jailed clients screamed out injustice – they were so angry with the judgment,” lawyer Sam Sokong told AFP, saying they would appeal.
Outside the court, relatives were bereft.
“This is very unjust. I expected he would be released today. Please, international community help my husband,” So Ith, the wife of one defendant, told AFP.
For the defendants sentenced to five years in prison, the court suspended part of their terms, so they will serve three years and eight months.
The charges related to Rainsy’s planned return to Cambodia in 2019, when he called on people to rise up against Hun Sen.
Around 150 opposition figures and activists have been put on trial for treason and incitement charges – mostly for sharing social media messages supporting Rainsy’s return to the kingdom.
“This is just another day of injustice here in Cambodia. It’s the norm now, injustice is the norm,” said Theary Seng, a lawyer and activist who is herself facing treason and incitement charges.
“The suffering of these innocent people, their family members, you see in their faces the suffering waiting for their loved ones to be freed, loved ones who are innocent.”
IRON-FISTED RULE
Hun Sen is one of the world’s longest-ruling leaders, maintaining an iron grip on power for more than 37 years, with critics and rights groups saying he has ruthlessly crushed dissent by jailing opponents and activists.
Since the last general election in 2018, when Hun Sen’s party won every seat in a vote without a credible opposition, the Cambodian authorities have stepped up arrests of former members of the dissolved opposition party, human rights defenders and dissenting voices.
Another senior opposition leader, Kem Sokha, is also on trial for treason in a case that has already dragged on since January 2020 and could effectively rule him out of next year’s national election.
Hun Sen is grooming his eldest son Hun Manet – a four-star general educated in Britain and the United States – to take over the leadership one day.
But the 69-year-old has not set a date to step back from power and is expected to stand again in 2023.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned the verdicts and urged the international community to take a stand.
“The mass trial and convictions of political opponents on baseless charges is a witch hunt that discredits both the Cambodian government and the country’s courts,” HRW’s Phil Robertson said in a statement.