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| Surya Subedi, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights, speaks to reporters from The Post on Friday in Phnom Penh. (Photo by: Pha Lina) |
Monday, 06 June 2011
Mary Kozlovski
The Phnom Penh Post
Surya Subedi was appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Cambodia in 2009 and carried out his fifth fact-finding mission to the Kingdom last week. He spoke to The Post on Friday.
You mentioned in a statement today that certain pieces of legislation in Cambodia had narrowed the scope of peoples’ rights. Which pieces of legislation are you referring to?
One example is the … provision of the penal code on defamation, disinformation and incitement. The powers given to the executive are rather broad. While I welcome the legislation – it’s better to have a penal code than not to have one – it’s a progressive document in so many areas, but not progressive enough in a number of areas. They include mainly the provisions relating to freedom of speech. My position has been all along to decriminalise defamation and disinformation, and the penal code doesn’t do that.
Do you feel that broad powers for the executive are a common problem in Cambodian legislation?
I would not go as far as to generalise it, but generally speaking … parliament’s ability to restrain the executive has been limited. [Parliament] should be the defender and the guarantor of peoples’ human rights. To do so, parliament has to be more assertive, more independent and hold the executive to account.
A former UN World Food Programme employee, Seng Kunnaka, was convicted of incitement last year after sharing printed articles from an antigovernment website with co-workers. Do you believe that he was wrongfully charged?
I don’t want to go into the merit of the case at this stage, but I have concerns about the procedure involved. He was arrested on a Friday and he was convicted by Sunday afternoon – so within a matter of two days [the case went] from arrest to conviction – to me, casting serious doubt about the requirements of a fair trial. A trial of that nature, conducted and completed within two days, gave me cause for concern.
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