ASEAN HEADLINE | UN Human Rights’ (UNHRO’s) comments on jailing of environmental activists rebuffed

FREE ASEAN
FREE MYANMAR/CAMBODIA/THAILAND
FREE Aung San Suu Kyi 

.

.

The Permanent Mission of Cambodia to the United Nations in Geneva has issued a press statement in response to comments made by Thameen Al-Kheetan, spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office (UNHRO), regarding the sentencing of Mother Nature environmental activists by the Cambodian court.

UN Human Rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan, on July 2, said that “We are gravely concerned by the conviction and harsh sentencing, from six to eight years in prison, of 10 Cambodian environmental activists on charges, including lèse majesté”.

“We call for the case to be reviewed on appeal in line with international human rights law. We also urge the authorities to review the charges brought against these environmental activists, particularly in relation to six of them who were minors at the time the acts were allegedly committed,” he said.

“The increasing use by Cambodian authorities of lèse majesté and other articles of Cambodia’s criminal code to penalise the exercise of human rights is deeply worrying,” he said.

The press statement of the Permanent Mission of Cambodia to the United Nations said yesterday that “These environmental activists were charged not because of exercising their right and freedom, but for plotting against the government and insulting the King which is an offense committed in Cambodia from 2012 until 2021 and punishable under Articles 437 and 453 of the Criminal Code of Cambodia.”

“The defendants had full opportunity to be heard, including the right to counsel, and to disprove the charges as part of the right to a fair trial and due process,” it said.

“In Cambodia, like other democratic countries, no individual is simply charged on the basis of who they are, but on law prescribed offence. Being an environmental activist or an affiliation with any purported rights organisation does not entitle them to act with impunity,” it said.

“To tag law enforcement by the authorities as ‘deeply worrying’ is to denigrate the rule of law and equal application to all citizens as warranted by the Constitution. It is the duty of everyone, including the self-proclaimed environmental activists, to exercise their rights with accountability and responsibility within the bounds of the law,” it said.

The Permanent Mission of Cambodia said that the call for “the case to be reviewed” or “to review the charges” is highly prejudiced against integrity of the Cambodian judiciary and its decisionmaking processes.

The court’s decision is based on concrete evidence and strictly adheres to the due process and the principle of legality. The defendants have full rights to protect themselves in accordance with the law by appealing against the court decision, it said.

Although six of them were minors at the time of the commission of the offences, criminal responsibility remains applicable if warranted by the circumstances of the offence or the character of the minors, pursuant to Article 39 of the Criminal Code, it said.

The call for an amendment of the relevant articles of the Criminal Code is misleading. The Criminal Code was crafted by Western legal experts with wide consultation by stakeholders to ensure that the fundamental rights as guaranteed by the Constitution and international human rights conventions to which Cambodia is a State party are protected, lawbreakers are duly liable for their criminal misconduct, the press statement said.

This does not concern the provisions of the Criminal Code. The (UNHRC) Spokesperson should work to educate human rights activists to exercise their rights within the remit of the rule of law, it added.

On July 2, Phnom Penh Municipal Court jailed the ten Mother Nature activists for plotting to overthrow the government and insulting King Norodom Sihamoni and Former Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2021.

Soth Koemsoeun / Khmer Times