It is even harder for Mr Sam Rainsy to defend himself in person, since the government will not let him into the country. The prime minister, he explains, has threatened to shoot down any plane bringing him home from exile in France, “meaning I was not welcome”.
At the same trial, the municipal court in Phnom Penh, the capital, sentenced eight other senior members of the banned Cambodian National Rescue Party , all of whom were absent, to between 20 and 22 years’ imprisonment. Some 150 lower-ranking members of the party are still on trial. To make the mass hearings more manageable, the defendants have been clumped into three different groups, of roughly 20, 60 and 70. Nobody is quite sure of the exact numbers.
, a government mouthpiece, gleefully noted recently that supporters of the two founders “are becoming increasingly divided”.to participate in municipal elections next year. The most recent general election, in 2018, at which the ruling party won 125 out of the 125 seats in the national assembly, was slightly embarrassing. The participation of some genuine opposition figures might help the next look like less of a sham.
But the European Union, at least, does not appear to have been fooled. On March 11th the European Parliament said it was “appalled” by human-right violations in Cambodia. Last year theimposed tariffs on about 20% of imports from Cambodia in protest at the government’s repression. Mr Sam Rainsy thinks more targeted measures are needed. The elite park their money, send their children to study and take agreeable holidays in the West, he says.
Cambodians must thank Vietnam's communist regime that invaded Cambodia in 1979 to dislodge the Khmer rouge and install Hun Sen as their dictatorial prime minister.
Hun Sen has yet to face Mass Murder charges for his Pol Pot days...
Thanks didi, you are so brave..as Goddess Durga.I have been raising already Objections on Modi's suspicious leadership on UNSC platform&member Javedakhtarjadu RajeevDhavan MahuaMoitra PChidambaram_IN VP VP45 justinbieber drmmumbaicr MumbaiPolice