Ex-KPP leader gets five years in prison
Anti-PM post leads to arrest
BANTEAY Meanchey Provincial Police arrested a 31-year-old woman on Saturday for making an allegedly insulting comment aimed at Prime Minister Hun Sen on a Fresh News article posted to Facebook.
Provincial Police Chief Ath Khem said Mao Linda was arrested Saturday night in Poipet and would be sent to court today. “She has insulted a leader on Facebook. She has confessed that it is her Facebook account and to the allegations,” he said.
Fresh News posted a news article to its Facebook account about a Hun Sen speech that was critical of the US bombing of Cambodia in the 1970s. Linda, whose Facebook name is Linda GiGi, instead attacked Hun Sen for being a “betrayer”.
“Cambodia does not accept Ah Hun Sen’s family that cut off and sold the land of the King Father. You are a national betrayer,” the comment read, using a Khmer term meaning “contemptible”.
Recently the premier has been sensitive to rumours circulating on social media, and authorities have not hesitated to arrest individuals for making “death threats” and insulting comments.
Legal expert Sok Sam Oeun said the law allowed for such complaints to be filed but that it would be received with mockery elsewhere. “In the US, if politicians file a lawsuit like this then [people] will laugh their heads off at them.” FORMER Khmer Power Party head Sourn Serey Ratha was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and fined $2,500 on Friday for allegedly inciting soldiers to disobey orders by criticising the recent deployment of troops to the Lao border.
His defence lawyer, Sok Sam Oeun, yesterday said Serey Ratha was found guilty of inciting military personnel to disobedience, demoralising the army and incitement.
“That’s why he received five years,” he said. “He will appeal.”
Serey Ratha, 44, was arrested earlier this month after he wrote on Facebook that a conflict between the two countries would only harm soldiers, while generals could safely enjoy their “money” and “girls”.
A snap trial followed just a day after his arrest, but was postponed by 10 days to allow the one-time convicted “terrorist” to find a lawyer. The judgment was pronounced a day after his trial, in which he faced up to 12 years in prison.
Sam Oeun said that the judgment might intimidate others.
“He just said it like that [without thinking] and got sentenced: it makes others scared and think that there is no right to talk,” he said.
Serey Ratha’s wife, Nai Chakriya, said the prison sentence of five years and 10 million riel fine (about $2,500) was too harsh.
“To me, it is unjust. It was just his expression and what he said, because he cares about the army, he loves the nation and was worried about the nation,” she said.
“He did not mean to cause a problem. But the court sentenced him like that anyway. It is not justice for him.”