Press Release: Asian Human Rights Commission
Unlike many other countries, Cambodia is bound to international human rights obligations, including one towards its citizens who wish to participate in the promotion of human rights. Thus, under the Paris Peace Agreements of 1991 that ended the conflict in that country, “Cambodia undertakes”, among other things, “to support the right of all (its) citizens to undertake activities that would promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
Since the conclusion of those agreements many such citizens have formed various NGOs with the purpose of doing precisely that work. Nowadays, there are several thousand NGOs that have registered but only a fraction of them are actually operational.
In reality, the Cambodian government has not honoured this particular international obligation as the registration of NGOs is a lengthy and complicated business, and requires the approval of officials at many levels of administration from the commune, district and provincial levels to many units higher up in the Ministry of Interior.
No comments:
Post a Comment