US President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 more troops to move quickly to Afghanistan "to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through the country."
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Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Obama moves against Taliban
US President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 more troops to move quickly to Afghanistan "to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through the country."Read More...
Rights Situation Comes Under UN Review
Original report from Phnom Penh
01 December 2009
Under the Human Rights Council, member states are reviewed every four years. In a submission to the council, Human Rights Watch underscored political violence, impunity for senior government officials in serious rights abuses, forced evictions and land confiscation, among others.
Sam Rainsy backers protest abroad
Supporters of opposition leader Sam Rainsy wave placards during a demonstration against the “deterioration of democracy in Cambodia” on Parliament Hill in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, on Monday. Hundreds gathered to protest against the Cambodian government’s alleged mistreatment of opposition politicians.
SUPPORTERS of embattled opposition leader Sam Rainsy gathered in North American capitals this weekend to protest what they called the deteriorating state of democracy in Cambodia.
Organised as a response to the National Assembly’s decision last month to strip Sam Rainsy of his parliamentary immunity, nearly 200 people protested on Parliament Hill in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, while a smaller group demonstrated in front of the Cambodian embassy in Washington on Saturday, organisers said.
Pretty Ma, secretary general of the Sam Rainsy Party North America, said opposition politicians in the Kingdom face “mistreatment and harassment”.
“The way immunity can be easily revoked from the people’s representatives is something almost unheard of here in the West,” he wrote in an email. “It’s overdone, truly abusive and ridiculous.”
The protesters urged Canada and the US to deny entry visas to “any corrupted official, including any human rights violators”.
Sam Rainsy, who is currently in Europe, was stripped of his immunity last month after an October incident in which he uprooted six wooden posts in Svay Rieng province along the border with Vietnam.
Villagers had claimed the Vietnamese were encroaching on their land.
The Vietnamese government, however, reacted with outrage, and the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the act “perverse”.
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Organised as a response to the National Assembly’s decision last month to strip Sam Rainsy of his parliamentary immunity, nearly 200 people protested on Parliament Hill in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, while a smaller group demonstrated in front of the Cambodian embassy in Washington on Saturday, organisers said.
Pretty Ma, secretary general of the Sam Rainsy Party North America, said opposition politicians in the Kingdom face “mistreatment and harassment”.
“The way immunity can be easily revoked from the people’s representatives is something almost unheard of here in the West,” he wrote in an email. “It’s overdone, truly abusive and ridiculous.”
The protesters urged Canada and the US to deny entry visas to “any corrupted official, including any human rights violators”.
Sam Rainsy, who is currently in Europe, was stripped of his immunity last month after an October incident in which he uprooted six wooden posts in Svay Rieng province along the border with Vietnam.
Villagers had claimed the Vietnamese were encroaching on their land.
The Vietnamese government, however, reacted with outrage, and the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the act “perverse”.
Read More...
Monday, November 30, 2009
Duch asks to be set free
On Friday, 27 November 2009
Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, on Friday asked judges at the Khmer Rouge tribunal to release him, and his lawyer later clarified that the former chief of Tuol Sleng prison was seeking an acquittal on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges.
Duch’s surprise request came at the end of a 17-minute statement, his last before the Trial Chamber, during which he acknowledged his involvement in Khmer Rouge-era crimes, including the execution of more than 12,000 Tuol Sleng prisoners, but said they were committed by a “criminal party”.
“I still maintain my position that I am responsible for the crimes as the member of the criminal party,” he said. “At the beginning, I thought that the party would be a decent one, but later on it was the criminal party, and I was part of the party.”
Duch also noted that he had served more than 10 years in detention, and stressed that he had been fully cooperative with the tribunal.
“So I would ask the chamber to release me. I’m very grateful, your honours,” he concluded.
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Duch’s surprise request came at the end of a 17-minute statement, his last before the Trial Chamber, during which he acknowledged his involvement in Khmer Rouge-era crimes, including the execution of more than 12,000 Tuol Sleng prisoners, but said they were committed by a “criminal party”.
“I still maintain my position that I am responsible for the crimes as the member of the criminal party,” he said. “At the beginning, I thought that the party would be a decent one, but later on it was the criminal party, and I was part of the party.”
Duch also noted that he had served more than 10 years in detention, and stressed that he had been fully cooperative with the tribunal.
“So I would ask the chamber to release me. I’m very grateful, your honours,” he concluded.
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