Thousands take to Cambodia’s streets on ‘Human Rights Day

Leader of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party Sam Rainsy (centre) leads his supporters during a march to celebrate the 65th Anniversary of Human Rights Day in Phnom Penh yesterday.

AFP/Phnom Penh

Thousands of Cambodian opposition supporters and activists, including Buddhist monks, took to the streets yesterday to mark Human Rights Day and call for improvements in the kingdom’s rights record.

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy led a crowd of some 6,000 supporters — many waving Cambodian flags and holding banners that read “Long Live Democracy” — through Phnom Penh.

Chanting the party’s slogan of “Change! Change!” and “Step Down!” — a reference to opposition demands that Prime Minister Hun Sen resign — the crowd gathered at a park in the city centre.

“Now, the state of human rights in our country is going down. We must struggle for the full and proper respect of human rights,” Rainsy told the crowd.

Cambodians have lost their rights due to “corruption and dictatorship”, the opposition leader said, repeating his claim that Hun Sen won July’s national election due to widespread voting fraud.

He raised the recent death of South Africa’s anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, saying: “We will walk the same path as Nelson Mandela and we will be successful like him.”

Several hundred land rights activists and some Buddhist monks marched to parliament. Thousands of garment workers and government officials also attended separate rallies to mark the UN-backed Human Rights Day.

Hundreds of riot police were deployed outside Hun Sen’s house and at other key locations.

Activists say land conflicts are Cambodia’s most pressing human rights issue.

There have also been a series of recent protests by garment workers over poor conditions and low pay in factories, some of which have ended in violent crackdowns by security forces. Last month a woman was shot dead and several injured after riot police used live ammunition and tear gas to break up a garment worker demonstration.

The government has faced mounting criticism from rights groups for alleged crackdowns on dissidents and protesters, in cases that are often linked to high-profile land disputes.

US President Barack Obama told Hun Sen last year that his government’s human rights violations were “an impediment” to better relations

Court jails ex-party head for corruption

10:23 PM

10

December

2013

AFP/Jakarta

An Indonesian court has jailed the disgraced former head of the country’s biggest Islamic party for 16 years over a scandal in which bribe money was laundered as gifts for dozens of women, including an adult magazine model.

The controversy, which erupted when an aide was discovered in a hotel room with a naked college student, has shattered the clean image of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), damaging its chances at polls next year.

Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq, who was president of the PKS when the scandal emerged, was found guilty late Monday by the anti-corruption court in the capital Jakarta of accepting bribes from a meat import company.

Anti-graft investigators seized 1.3bn rupiah ($110,000) in bribe money as well as six luxury cars from Ishaaq during the investigation.

The meat company, Indoguna Utama, had pledged to give him 40bn rupiah in kickbacks to use his influence with the government to have its beef import quota raised, the court heard. “Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq was proven legally and convincingly guilty of conspiring in crimes of corruption and money laundering,” chief judge Gusrizal Lubis told the court.

He was found guilty of corruption and money laundering and jailed for 16 years. He was also ordered to pay a 1bn-rupiah fine. Ishaaq said he did not accept the verdict and would appeal.

Two executives from Indoguna Utama were previously found guilty and jailed over the case.

The scandal emerged in January when anti-corruption agents raided a hotel room and discovered Ishaaq’s aide, Ahmad Fathanah, with the naked student shortly after receiving bribe money. It snowballed into a huge controversy, even by the standards of graft-ridden Indonesia.

Fathanah was found to be the main conduit for the bribe money.

Evidence emerged he bought gifts for 45 women —including an adult magazine model — to launder the cash. He was jailed for 14 years in November over