Representatives from the newly formed Cambodia Watchdog Council will gather Sunday with more than 1,000 students, teachers, workers and farmers to demand that Prime Minister Hun Sen step down because of last week’s anti-Thai riots, union officials said Wednesday.
Union officials will discuss at the meeting—which is scheduled to take place on Sunday at the headquarters of the Free Trade Union of Workers in Daun Penh district—whether to call for a factory worker strike next week in protest of last week’s arrests of Beehive Radio station owner Mam Sonando and Rasmei Angkor (Light of Angkor) newspaper Editor En Chan Sivatha.
Officials from the Free Trade Union of Workers, the Student Movement for Democracy, the Cambodian Front of Intellectuals, Students for Democracy, the Independent Farmers Association and the Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association are demanding the release of the two men, as well as students who they say are being unfairly detained for participating in the Jan 29 riots.
“Prime Minister Hun Sen should resign from his post because of his carelessness [and] in order to restore honor of the country,” according to a letter sent to the government on Saturday.
The group said Hun Sen is culpable for leading citizens astray.
“Those people didn’t want to hold the riots. They did this because the students respect and follow what Prime Minister Hun Sen said,” Independent Farmers Association President Chham Chhany said.
Hun Sen adviser Om Yentieng said Wednesday night that he has not seen the letter. “Everything the government does depends on the law. Mam Sonando’s case is for the court system, not the government, to decide,” he said. “If the group wants to strike, it is their right. Just do it without violence.”
Regarding the call for Hun Sen to resign, Om Yentieng said that Hun Sen’s handling of the situation did not merit his resignation.
“The prime minister does everything he can to protect Cambodia,” he said.
Free Trade Union of Workers President Chea Vichea said Wednesday that he would call on union representatives from 66 factories at the Sunday meeting to persuade the Municipal Court to release Mam Sonando by calling for a strike to begin next week.
“We don’t know yet whether we will hold the demonstration by marching across Phnom Penh or holding a strike to stop factories from processing,” Chea Vichea said.
