Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Cambodian government to stop interfering in preparations for the Khmer Rouge genocide trials, prompting an official denial yesterday that authorities had done anything wrong.
The New-York based rights group was responding to a decision last week by international and Cambodian judicial officials to delay the adoption of rules that will govern the tribunal.
The two sides said they had encountered "substantive disagreement" in their goal to adopt 110 draft rules for running the proceedings, which are expected to begin next year.
HRW accused the government of intervening.
"Acting on instructions from government officials, Cambodian personnel participating in the meeting delayed adoption of the draft rules, reversing earlier progress in the drafting process," the rights group said in a statement on Tuesday.
"Government control over the Cambodian judiciary in the Khmer Rouge tribunal has always been a grave concern," Brad Adams, the group's Asia director, was quoted as saying in the statement.
The tribunal was created by a 2003 agreement between Cambodia and the UN after years of difficult negotiations to try to seek justice for crimes committed when the Khmer Rouge held power from 1975 to 1979.
The radical policies of the now-defunct communist group led to the deaths of some 1.7 million people from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition.
Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith dismissed HRW's allegations as "politically motivated."
He said the tribunal organizers were just being "thorough" about working through complicated legal issues.
The rules cover every phase of the proceedings -- preliminary investigations, judicial investigations, the trial and appeals.
They also delineate the roles of all parties, including prosecutors, defense attorneys and defendants.
Critics have often described the Cambodian judiciary as weak, corrupt and susceptible to political influence.
Helen Jarvis, a spokeswoman for the tribunal, said there was no indication of any political interference from the Cambodian government.
But HRW said that "many of the Khmer Rouge leaders are old and increasingly frail, but until the rules are adopted, prosecutions and trials cannot move forward. Political interference has brought the whole process to a screeching halt."
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
UPGRADED ALERT: The risk inside DR Congo is now considered ‘very high,’ while neighboring countries face a ‘high’ threat as the outbreak continues, the WHO said Ebola is spreading faster than responders can track it in eastern Congo, where health workers managed to follow up with barely one in five identified contacts in a single day. Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) reported 83 confirmed infections, 746 suspected cases and 1,603 identified contacts as of Thursday, but health workers were able to follow up on only 342 contacts that day — about 21 percent of the total under monitoring — data released by the DR Congo Ministry of Public Health on Friday showed. The figures suggest the response is falling behind the outbreak itself,
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
RSS