Paris-Geneva, July 8, 2019 - Upon return from a fact-finding mission
in Cambodia, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, an
FIDH-OMCT partnership, expresses its utmost concern over the increasingly
shrinking civic space for human rights defenders in the country.
Over the past months, human rights defenders in Cambodia have been
subject to constant acts of harassment from the Government that has sought to
link them to a fictitious “colour revolution”, allegedly led by the former
political opposition. Civil society space has further closed since the
Government initiated its political crackdown ahead of the July 2018 general
election, and defenders currently operate in a repressive environment that is
unprecedented in Cambodia’s recent history. The main obstacles for the exercise
of defenders’ work include the harassment of dissenting voices including NGOs
and media outlets and journalists, an increasingly oppressive security presence
and restrictive legal amendments.
In 2017 and 2018, as Cambodia’s multi-party democracy was being
dismantled, independent civil society was further repressed and sentenced
through abusive charges and judicial processes. For instance, in September
2018, four
staff members from the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association
(ADHOC) - one of Cambodia’s most prominent human rights NGO - were
convicted of “bribery”. Moreover, the few remaining independent media
outlets were shut down or sharply curtailed through the abuse of tax laws
and administrative licensing procedures. The media outlets affected by these
measures included the two independent English-language newspapers, the Cambodia
Daily and the Phnom Penh Post, as well as Khmer-language radio
programmes from Voice of America, Radio Free Asia (RFA), and Voice of Democracy.
Messrs. Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin, two former RFA journalists, were arrested on
November 14, 2017, two months after RFA
shuttered its Cambodia operations. They were charged under Article 445 of the
Criminal Code, for providing “information to foreign interests detrimental to
national security”. After their release on bail almost a year later on August
21, 2018, they were placed under court supervision, which bars them from
changing their addresses or travelling abroad. On June 21, 2019, they lost an appeal
that sought to have their court supervision lifted. However, the court
clarified that the two no longer need to report to the police every month. The
charges against them are still pending, and both face up to 15 years in jail,
if convicted.
State interference in, and monitoring of, human rights activities has
also become a systematic practice, which has had
a chilling effect on civil society. Although Notice No. 175, a regulation
requiring any group, such as NGOs, to inform local authorities three days
before any gathering or event, was repealed by the Interior Minister on
November 27, 2018, scores of human rights defenders and other groups have
continued to be monitored and questioned by local authorities any time they
have held, or intended to hold, human rights trainings or workshops. Local
authorities’ interference in such gatherings have included the review of lists
of participants and agendas, as well as authorities’ physical presence during
the events. In an attempt to intimidate civil society, the Government has
increasingly deployed armed tactical police on the occasion of larger public
human rights assemblies, in particular International Human Rights Day,
International Women’s Rights Day, and International Labour Day. For
International Labour Day in Phnom Penh on May 1, 2019, around 500 mixed
security forces were deployed while workers and civil society members gathered
at both the Government’s Council for the Development of Cambodia as well as
“Freedom Park”, an area several kilometres from the city centre designated by
the authorities for such assemblies. On that day, municipal authorities stopped
workers from marching to the National Assembly, and instead allowed for a
limited march around the temple Wat Phnom in the presence of security officials.
For International Women’s Rights Day on March 8, 2019, about 500 demonstrators,
mostly representatives of local unions and NGOs, gathered in Phnom Penh’s
Olympic Stadium, where mixed security forces, including police officers
equipped with military-style tactical gear, physically trapped them inside the
stadium and prevented them from leaving or joining other demonstrators outside.
A similarly large security presence was deployed during International Human
Rights Day on December 10, 2018, when a group of defenders and NGOs
participated in a peaceful assembly at “Freedom Park”. After the Phnom Penh
Municipality threatened legal action against the organisers of the event,
citing vague concerns about “security and public order”, hundreds of security
forces – many of them wearing tactical gear and crash helmets – surrounded
“Freedom Park”. The security forces outnumbered participants, a show of force
that could only be intended to intimidate protesters.
Land and environmental human rights defenders are particularly subjected
to threats and harassment in Cambodia.
One
of the most emblematic case is the one of Ms. Tep Vanny, a land rights
defender and Boeung Kak community representative, who was finally
released in August 2018 after being detained for
735 days in relation to a peaceful protest she attended in 2013. Moreover, security
forces, including military soldiers, have also been deployed in land conflicts,
a trend that has resulted in several cases of disproportionate and unnecessary
force being used against those defending their land. In January 2019, military
soldiers attacked a community facing eviction in Preah Vihear Province, locked
in a land conflict with a Cambodian rubber company that was granted a land
concession of more than 8,500 hectares. The farmers were arrested and
physically assaulted by soldiers who had been hired by the company as security
guards. One of the community’s representatives, Mr. Sum Meun, was beaten
and, following his arrest, disappeared for two months, later reappearing in a
state of shock and still suffering from injuries related to his beating.
State control has similarly increased online,
in an attempt to shrink civic space on the web. On May 2, 2018, the Cambodian
Government ordered all internet service providers to have their customers’
traffic pass through a State-owned data management centre at Telecom Cambodia,
and the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications was ordered to “block or
close” websites and social media pages that had “illegal [content] ...
considered as incitement, breaking solidarity, discrimination, create turmoil
by will, leading to undermine national security, and public interests and
social order”. These orders stem from the 2015 Law on Telecommunications, a
piece of legislation that gives the Government broad authority to monitor and
police private and public communications, and in such a context, several
defenders have increasingly resorted to self-censorship due to a fear of
reprisals. The 2015 Law and related orders could soon be coupled with a draft
Cybercrime Bill, which in previous versions contained vague provisions
criminalising “slanderous” comments against the Government or officials made
online.
“The
rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression protected
under international law are systematically violated in Cambodia, and human
rights defenders are increasingly perceived as threats rather than legitimate
actors of change by the authorities. It is high time for the Cambodian
Government to acknowledge the positive role of human rights defenders for the
development of the country, and to reopen the space for civil society”, the Observatory said today.
Another set of laws that regulate NGOs and trade union activities have
placed undue restrictions and burdens on defenders by undermining their right
to freedom of association.
The Law on Trade Unions (LTU), adopted in May 2016, established a
bureaucratic and burdensome process to register unions, setting up barriers
intended to obstruct activities related to labour rights. Registration is
required for any union to operate, otherwise its activity is deemed illegal
under the above-mentioned law. A registration form requires extensive
information, including family information of a union’s leadership, their
biographies, and documents such as social security IDs and labour book
registrations, which are typically held by factory management and thus
difficult to access. Local unions have reported that government authorities
regularly deny their registrations for arbitrary reasons, such as minor
spelling errors. In addition, the LTU allows for the dissolution of a union if
one of its leaders is convicted of a crime. In December 2018, six union leaders
- Messrs. Ath Thorn, Chea Mony, Mam Nhim, Pav Sina,
Rong Chhun, and Yang
Sophorn - were convicted and handed suspended prison sentences for their
alleged role in a protest over the minimum wage in 2013.
Much like the LTU, the 2015 Law on Associations and Non-Governmental
Organisations (LANGO) gives the Government overly broad powers that require all
groups and associations to register before conducting any activities,
determines a mandatory registration process, and gives the Ministry of Interior
a wide range of powers to curtail freedoms of association and peaceful
assembly. In September 2017, the Ministry of Interior used the LANGO to suspend
one of the largest local land rights NGOs, Equitable
Cambodia, alleging that the NGO had violated the reporting requirements
stipulated in the LANGO. Equitable
Cambodia was only able to resume operations in February 2018, following
intense public international pressure.
“If the
Government is serious about its commitment to improve the living conditions of
the Cambodian people, it should stop targeting defenders, and recognise them as
key actors in the improvement of Cambodia's dire human rights record”, the Observatory concluded.
Context:
From June 10 to June 20, 2019, the Observatory carried out a
fact-finding mission to Cambodia visiting Phnom Penh, Kompong Chhnang,
Battambang, Banteacy Meanchey, and Siem Reap provinces. The mission met with a
wide-range of human rights defenders including land and environmental rights
defenders, women’s rights defenders, media activists, as well as civil and
political rights defenders. The objective of the mission was to analyse to what
extent civil society space has shrunk in the lead-up to, during, and after the
2018 general election, assess the main obstacles currently affecting civil
society activities in the country, and identify causes and specific events
attesting the shrinking of civic space. A fact-finding mission report will be
published by the end of 2019.
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (the
Observatory) is a partnership created in 1997 by the FIDH and the World
Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and aims to intervene to prevent or remedy
concrete situations of repression against human rights defenders. FIDH and OMCT
are both members of ProtectDefenders.eu, the European Union mechanism for human
rights defenders implemented by international civil society.
For more information, please contact:
·
FIDH:
Samuel Hanryon (French, English): + 33 6 72 28 42 94
·
OMCT:
Delphine Reculeau (French, English): + 41 22 809 49 39
| Tweet |
English