Land crabbing, forced eviction and demolition under Hun Xen's leadershipWashington
04 December 2009
If the government doesn’t move to curb persecution of human rights defenders, it can be implicated in rights abuses, a Cambodian advocate said Thursday.
Rights groups in the country have faced a high number of threats this year, said Ou Virak, executive director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, as a guest on “Hello VOA.”
“So in this case, we look in every corner,” he said. “One, we look at policy and legality, because the state has policies and laws of protection. Two, we see about punishment, and then in any case that the state is aware [of abuses] but does not take the effort to find justice, that mans the state is participating in human rights violations.”
People are “still in fear,” he said, because of physical threats of violence and legal threats.
“We see that all these threats are contrasting the principle of human rights that we declared to recognized, but we do not maintain,” he said. “That’s what’s important.”
In 2009, at least 168 rights workers faced persecution, arrest or detention, according to figures from rights organizations, he said.
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