WASHINGTON (AP) - Kem Monovithya, a Cambodian political activist, was visiting Switzerland in September when she got a phone call from her father. Kem Sokha, the leader of Cambodia’s main opposition party, told his daughter that government agents were raiding their family’s home in Phnom Penh.
“He told me: ‘They’re handcuffing me now,’” Kem Monovithya, 36, recalled in an interview with the Associated Press.
Months later, her father remains in prison, facing charges of treason, and she is in the United States.
She said she can’t go home because she fears she, too, will be arrested as part of a government crackdown that has banned the political party her father led, shut down news outlets and scattered hundreds of Cambodian politicians, human rights activists and journalists into exile in the U.S., Australia, Thailand and other countries.
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling party, the Cambodian People’s Party, has stepped up actions against media organizations and opposition politicians over the past two years as national elections - which are set for Sunday - have drawn closer.
Hun Sen, who had held power for three decades, vowed last year that he’d be willing to “eliminate 100 to 200 people” to protect the nation’s security, suggesting his opponents “prepare coffins.”
Spokespeople for the ruling party and the government did not answer questions from the AP for this story.
In February the government issued a 132-page book that asserted that “real democracy is not being reversed … On the contrary, only fake democracy is being uprooted.”
The international watchdog group Human Rights Watch says the “civil and political rights environment in Cambodia” has “markedly deteriorated” since the start of 2017. The group says the regime has engaged in “arbitrary arrests and other abuses” and worked to portray peaceful dissent over corruption, land rights and other issues as attempts to overthrow the government....
Kem Monovithya and other exiled members of the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party are keeping the party alive from abroad. They are trying to convince the U.S., the European Union and others to place an embargo on international travel by top Cambodian officials, but avoid a general economic embargo that would hurt average Cambodians.They are also asking voters boycott this month’s elections, using social media to urge Cambodians to embrace a “clean finger campaign.” In Cambodia[1], voters must dip their fingers in ink after casting their ballots.A spokesman for Hun Sen’s ruling party told Agence France-Presse that those promoting the boycott could face criminal charges for “incitement to obstruct an election.”- ‘BEYOND WORDS’Kem Monovithya and other exiles have traveled around the U.S. and to Europe, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere to spread their message, talking with diplomats, lawmakers, media and Cambodians living abroad.As they advocate for change from afar, Cambodia’s political exiles are also struggling with a sense of loss and dislocation.“I miss my family, my kids,” said Sia Phearum, a Cambodian land rights activist who fled the country