The under-pressure Candlelight Party said on Wednesday it would rely on foreign countries to promote fair elections in Cambodia, and it did not consider public demonstrations to be beneficial.
Sophoan Seng, president of Ceroc, said the dissolution of the CNRP hurt the independence of the National Election Committee and this was evident in recent complaints from the Candlelight being denied by the election body.
The symbolism used to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Paris Peace Agreements is one of reconciliation. But the road to that moment was long, more than a decade in the making and intertwined with tectonic shifts in the geopolitical arrangements that helped usher in the Khmer Rouge in the first place.
Anniversaries of the Paris Peace Agreements were not always prominent affairs. Largely overlooked by local newspapers until the landmark 20th anniversary, the day rose in visibility and contentiousness alongside the emergence of the popular opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, a look through newspaper archives shows.
Nine defendants were jailed for 12 to 20 months for incitement for their involvement in protests outside the Chinese Embassy last October, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court ruled on Monday.
A second trial hearing was held on Thursday into protesters charged with incitement after a rally outside the Chinese Embassy last October on the anniversary of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements. They were submitting petitions to embassies around the capital about upholding the accord’s goal of bringing multiparty democracy to the country.
A CNRP activist who distributed T-shirts saying “Thank you for peace, but respect Article 2 of the Constitution” was questioned in court on Thursday as his brother railed that authorities “keep hunting down and persecuting people and do not allow them to live peacefully.”
A Phnom Penh deputy governor was among authorities who harassed rights monitors and journalists, threatening to confiscate their cameras and phones, at a small opposition rally outside the Chinese Embassy on Friday, with a media advocate calling the authorities’ actions “unacceptable intimidation.”
A group of Facebook users were questioned by police on Wednesday after streaming live from a pagoda in Takeo province, and preparing to distribute copies of the Paris Peace Agreements while urging viewers to think about which foreigners stood behind various officials.
The Asia Pacific Summit, convened at Hun Sen’s Phnom Penh Peace Palace on Tuesday, saw the prime minister boast of the country’s rule of law and pluralistic democracy, and receive a good governance and leadership award.
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