https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/w ... c531a0bdf6Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen freed 14 political prisoners yesterday, in what critics say is a bid to whitewash the country’s descent into dictatorship and avoid economic sanctions.
The strongman has released at least 22 opposition figures since last month’s election at which his Cambodian People’s Party won all parliamentary seats.
The victory came after Mr Hun Sen dissolved the Cambodian National Rescue Party opposition and his CPP conducted a campaign marked by threats, intimidation, and bribery.
The July 29 polls were widely condemned as unfair, including by the Australian government which refused to send monitors to observe only the country’s sixth-ever general elections.
The 14 officials from the CNRP, which was disbanded by the courts last year for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government, were granted royal pardons on Monday night by King Norodom Sihamoni at Mr Hun Sen’s request. They were released from Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison early yesterday morning to a waiting crowd of families and former senior CNRP officials.
All 14 were convicted in 2015 of insurrection over a 2014 street demonstration protesting alleged election rigging by the CPP.
The group was released after sending a carefully worded letter last week expressing regret over joining the demonstration — which many say turned violent after pro-regime agitators attacked the crowd — and promising not to “join any protest or any activity without consideration”.
“We could work together. We may argue when it comes to politics, but we shouldn’t kill each other,” Meach Sovannara, a former CNRP press officer who had been sentenced to 20 years, said in a Facebook Live broadcast after his release yesterday.
The latest releases follow those of five jailed land rights campaigners, and two Radio Free Asia reporters who were imprisoned on espionage and pornography charges last year, after the government began a crackdown on independent media, beginning with the closure of several independent radio programs.
However, a bail request last week by jailed CNRP leader Kem Sokha was denied. Mr Sokha has been in pre-trial detention since November, when he was arrested for treason.
CNRP deputy president Mu Suchoa said yesterday the release of jailed CNRP workers and officials was “not an assurance” that democracy would be restored in Cambodia. He told The Australian the release of prisoners “should not be a negotiation” for preferential tariff deals.
Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said while he welcomed the releases, they should not have been incarcerated in the first place.
“The Cambodian government is very concerned about the reaction of the US and EU to a year of crackdowns, dissolving the main opposition party, running a sham election and this is the way they’re trying to alleviate the pressure — by releasing people thrown into prison on bogus or trumped up charges,” he said.
“What Hun Sen is trying to do is head off a decision in Brussels to possibly initiate a formal review of Cambodia’s ‘Everything But Arms’ trade status, which is the most generous of the tariff-free arrangements the EU grants.”
An EU delegation visited Cambodia last month and will decide in coming weeks whether to withdraw the impoverished country’s tariff-free access to the European market. Such a decision would be catastrophic for its garment industry, which exports more than 60 per cent of its product to the US and EU.
The US House of Representatives passed a bill last month to impose sanctions on members of Mr Hun Sen’s inner circle, and has warned in the wake of the elections — which the White House said “were neither free nor fair” — that it could expand visa restrictions against those who have undermined democracy.
Former Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop earlier this month also criticised the elections. But Australia has so far not imposed sanctions, saying it would make its concerns known to the Cambodian government.
CNRP political prisoners released
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CNRP political prisoners released
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