“After he has arrested our president Kem Sokha and dissolved our party, he now offers us a roadmap he wants us to follow. However, we are not going to walk the way Hun Sen wishes us to. If we follow his suggestion, Cambodia will be internationally isolated, and Cambodians will live in poverty and fear.”
Eng Chhay Eang, CNRP deputy president, on Prime Minister Hun Sen’s call for the CNRP to form a new political party. (RFA)
“The Secretary-General is concerned about the persistent narrowing of democratic space for political parties, media and civil society ahead of the 2018 national elections. We expect that the political environment and the time leading to the elections, in particular, will be free of intimidation, harassment, and fear.”
Farhan Aziz Haq, deputy spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. (VOA Khmer)
“…the law and the judicial system are being used to suppress any independent reporting and, above all, to intimidate the entire press. International organisations need to understand the gravity of what is happening in Phnom Penh. The denial of media freedom means the end of a 25-year democratic transition after the trauma of the Khmer Rouge genocide.”
Reporters Without Borders report. (Kyodo)
