BANGKOK – Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American lawyer and human rights activist, was sentenced to six years in prison on Tuesday for part of Cambodia’s widespread crackdown on dissidents. General Hun Sen.
Ms. Theary Seng – a refugee escape from the dead fields of Cambodia and who returned from the United States to help build democracy – were found guilty of treason, along with dozens of other critics and opposition politicians.
Choung Chou Ngy, her lawyer, said he plans to appeal her sentence. He said that those who have received five years of probation enjoy suspended sentences but other defendants of five to eight years will face jail terms.
They are all victims of a concerted campaign by Mr. Hun Sen to erase the last traces of resistance to what has become his general rule. The main opposition party, to which many defendants belong, is dissolved by court order in 2017causing many of its members to flee abroad.
Since then, the party’s top leaders, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, have been entangled in trials, with some convicted in absentia more than once on separate charges.
In March, 19 party members, including half a dozen leaders living in exile, were convicted of “incitement” and “conspiracy” and many were sentenced to prison in absentia.
At the time, Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, called the trials “a witch hunt” and said, “Cambodia’s politicized courts have facilitated Prime Minister Hun Sen strives to destroy the last vestiges of democratic and civil and political liberties. domestic rights. ”
Mr. Hun Sen’s party, the Cambodian People’s Party, currently holds all seats in the National Assembly. The prime minister, 69, recently announced that he would eventually hand over leadership of the country to his son Hun Manet, a lieutenant general.
Mr. Hun Sen was the prime minister in the Communist government established by Vietnam after its overthrow Khmer Rougeresponsible for the deaths of about two million people in the late 1970s.
After their overthrow, the Khmer Rouge waged a revolt in the jungle until the United Nations brokered an agreement and established a Western-style democracy with political freedoms and guarantees of human rights. permission.
Mr. Hun Sen remained in power, sharing it for some time with co-prime minister Norodom Ranariddh, following a United Nations-sponsored election.
It was against this backdrop that Theary Seng – who had survived the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, fled to the US and obtained a law degree – returned to Cambodia in 2004 as part of a human rights movement.
In an interview last year, she said she was back to help “completely prevent Cambodia’s deep dive into autocracy.” Looking back, she said, “I had very high hopes when I entered civil society.”
But Mr. Hun Sen has gradually gathered power and eliminated the opposition through imprisonment, exile, restitution, election manipulation, assassination and coup.
When human rights defenders flee or are arrested, Ms. Theary Seng remains one of the most staunch opponents of the government.
Ms Theary Seng retains her US citizenship but says she is determined not to run away, even though she may have. The US State Department criticized the charges against her and other defendants as “baseless” and the US Embassy said it was monitoring the trial.
Since being indicted along with dozens of others in November 2020, and with government-controlled news media and other modes of expression shut down, she has resorted to display to attract attention.
On sentencing day, she donned the latest in a lavish array of outfits, this time dressed as the Statue of Liberty with her face painted green, crown and green cape, which she was still wearing when the police took her in. a van.
