By Lauren Crothers
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
A Cambodian court has meted out prison sentences of between seven and 20 years to 11 opposition party activists found guilty of insurrection in a trial that has been condemned by rights groups.
The Cambodia Daily reported Tuesday that three of the 11 were jailed for 20 years “for leading an insurrection”, according to the presiding judge. The other eight received seven-year sentences for joining said insurrection.
The case stems from a protest that was held on July 15 last year on a road adjacent to Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park.
Although the park is the city’s only officially designated protest site, it had been barricaded off behind razor wire for weeks after the municipal and Interior Ministry authorities decided to impose an arbitrary ban on demonstrations.
Four Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) members -- who were then still MPs-elect, as they hadn’t taken their seats at the National Assembly because of a boycott -- were arrested in the ensuing scuffle as helmeted security guards and protesters clashed violently. People on both sides sustained injuries.
Calls to CNRP President Sam Rainsy, lawmaker Mu Sochua and party spokesmen Yim Sovann and Yem Ponharith were unsuccessful Tuesday.
According to the Facebook page of Meach Sovannara, one of the CNRP activists who was sentenced to 20 years Tuesday, he had enough evidence to prove his innocence, and said the judgment was a human rights violation.
The trial, which was supposed to proceed in February, experienced a number of delays before it was fast-tracked to Tuesday in a decision made Monday, according to the Daily.
The report also said that only one of the defense lawyers was in attendance, as the others had decided to boycott in response to the fast-track.
According to local rights group Licadho, which released a statement condemning the conviction, the judges had unexpectedly called for closing arguments, prompting the defendants to ask that their lawyers be given time to attend the hearing -- a request that was denied.
The group’s director Naly Pilorge said that police had entered the courtroom when the judges went to deliberate, making "it clear that this was a show trial with a predetermined ending, apparently set up only to intimidate the CNRP".
Licadho called for the verdicts to be overturned due to “trial irregularities and the facts of the case”, also stressing that courts must not be used as political tools.
Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch said in a post on its website that the trial is part of a campaign of intimidation by Cambodia’s long-serving prime minister, Hun Sen, who is reputed for his penchant for silencing his critics.
“It is beyond absurd to call a political protest by a small unarmed group an ‘insurrection,’ but this is the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ world over which Hun Sen presides,” the post quoted the group’s Asia director Brad Adams as saying.
“The government is clearly not responding to the July 15 violence, but rather searching for ways to weaken the political opposition.”
