As a member of Parliament in the southeast Australian state of Victoria, Heang Tak ranks among the most prominent of the country’s Cambodian diaspora, which has flourished since the first refugee boats began arriving from Indochina in the late mid-1970s.
He is also a prominent human rights advocate within the Australian Labor Party and has spoken out in regards to the tactics deployed by Cambodia’s former Prime Minister Hun Sen during the lead-up to national elections in July.
That election was won easily by Hun Sen’s Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) after the main opposition party, the Candlelight Party, was disqualified. The crackdown also saw the arrest of more than 100 dissidents accused of plotting against his government.
