Press Conference – Human Rights and Democracy Crisis in Cambodia: Time to Act
10:30-12:30 on Wednesday, 18 October 2017
Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT)
Event is free and open to the public
The event will be livestreamed through www.facebook.com/FORUMASIA/
The human rights and democracy crisis in Cambodia has now reached historical proportions. Using the pretence of stopping a so-called “colour revolution” PM Hun Sen and his Government appear determined to wipe out opposition or civil society voices prior to the scheduled July 2018 election. The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) faces dissolution, with its leaders in prison or exile; independent media is under full scale attack, with the Cambodia Daily shuttered and non-government radios off the air; human rights and community activists are fleeing, and a growing list of NGOs face suspension or expulsion.
Yet much of the international community and donors remains silent, watching impassively as the Cambodian Government guts the human rights and democracy guarantees in the Paris Peace Accords – despite the fact that many Governments remaining quiet today are those which signed that international treaty as guarantors playing their part to end the civil war and bring peace to Cambodia in 1991.
Representatives of Human Rights Watch, International Commission of Jurists, FORUM-ASIA and the UN OHRCR will discuss the full range of recent events and developments in Cambodia, and offer recommendations for urgent action by Governments, the United Nations and UN agencies on the ground, bilateral and multilateral donors to Cambodia, and international civil society.
Speakers:
- Katia Chirizzi, the Deputy Head of the OHCHR Regional Office for South East Asia,
- Phil Robertson, Deputy Director, Asia Division, Human Rights Watch,
- Kingsley Abbott, Senior International Legal Advisor for SE Asia, International Commission of Jurists, and
- Mukunda Kattel, Director, Asia Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA).
For more details, contact:
- Phil Robertson at [email protected]
- Kingsley Abbott at [email protected]
- Marte Hellema at [email protected]
