Cambodia's courts deal blow to opposition

Sep 25, 2010
By Irwin Loy
Inter Press Service

"I think this government believes it can effectively stop Sam Rainsy from returning to Cambodia for good" - Ou Virak

PHNOM PENH - Questions hover over the future of Cambodia's political opposition, as well as room for dissent, in the wake of the conviction and sentencing of the exiled leader of the country's largest opposition party to 10 years in prison.

On September 23, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court convicted opposition leader Sam Rainsy on charges of disinformation and falsifying public documents. He was accused of fabricating maps that he claimed showed neighboring Vietnam had encroached on Cambodian soil - a politically charged subject in a country whose government has close ties to Vietnamese authorities, yet where centuries-old antipathy among the population also lingers.

The court's decision comes after a separate January conviction that saw Sam Rainsy sentenced to two years in prison after he uprooted a marker along a stretch of the border with Vietnam. He was convicted in absentia in both cases, living in self-imposed exile in France.

In an e-mailed response to questions on Thursday, Sam Rainsy said the charges against him were "of a strictly political nature".

"Only a kangaroo court can issue the type of verdict we saw today," he wrote. "Everybody rightly says that the judiciary in this country is everything but independent, being only a political tool for the authoritarian ruling party to silence any critical voices."
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