US slams Cambodia’s crackdown on dissidents

The United States yesterday expressed concern over Cambodia’s crackdown on opposition to authoritarian leader Hun Sen, which has seen dozens of activists arrested and opposition leaders abroad prevented from returning.

Rights group Amnesty International decried cooperation by Malaysia and Thailand to prevent foreign-based Cambodian opposition figures getting home to rally support.

Self-exiled opposition party founder Sam Rainsy, who had vowed to return to Cambodia today to lead demonstrations against one-party rule, said he had been prevented on Thursday from checking in for a flight from Paris to Bangkok.

A day earlier, Malaysia detained his banned opposition party’s US-based vice president Mu Sochua at an airport before releasing her 24 hours later, along with two other Cambodian opposition leaders who had been detained earlier.

At least 48 opposition activists in Cambodia have been arrested this year since Rainsy announced plans to return on Cambodia’s independence day to rally opposition to prime minister.

The US was “deeply concerned by the recent expanding series of arrests, harassment and intimidation of Cambodian political opposition members and by efforts to thwart the return to Cambodia of citizens seeking peaceful participation in the political process”, a US embassy spokesman said yesterday.

Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for more than three decades, has described the planned return of opposition leaders abroad as a bid to stage a coup d’etat.

The banned Cambodian National Rescue Party’s (CNRP) leader at home, Kem Sokha, remains under house arrest after being charged with treason in 2017.

Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in 2017, paving the way for Hun Sen’s ruling party to win all the seats in Parliament in a general election last year.