State of Emergency Draft Law Would Allow PM Hun Sen to Run Cambodia ‘by Fiat’: HRW

Draft legislation authorizing a state of emergency to contain the spread of the coronavirus in Cambodia would “empower Prime Minister Hun Sen to override fundamental human rights protections,” a rights group said Thursday, urging his government to withdraw the bill.

On March 31, Cambodia’s Council of Ministers approved the “Law on Governing the Country in a State of Emergency,” which New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned in a statement would allow the government to “restrict all civil and political liberties and target human rights, democracy, and media groups.”

A vote on the bill by the country’s one-party National Assembly, essentially a rubber stamp parliament, is expected later this week or early next week.

In full: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/draft-04022020131833.html

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