In response to a summons she posted Friday on her Fb web page, she is to look on the Phnom Penh Municipal Court docket on Nov. 26 to face trial for conspiracy to commit treason and incitement to commit a felony. If convicted, she may resist 12 years in jail.
The others face the identical fees and still have court docket dates in late November. A number of are believed to reside outdoors Cambodia. A court docket spokesman was not in a position to verify the entire quantity on Friday, however Am Sam Ath, who works with the Cambodian human rights group Licadho, mentioned there have been a complete of 56 defendants on two lists of summoned folks.
Theary Seng has accused Hun Sen’s authorities of abusing human rights and being undemocratic. Hun Sen has been in energy for 35 years and has typically been accused of heading an authoritarian regime. A number of Western nations have imposed sanctions on his authorities, primarily after concluding that Cambodia’s 2018 basic election was neither free nor honest. The harshest measure got here from the European Union, which this yr withdrew some preferential buying and selling privileges.
In 2017, Hun Sen upended the nation’s politics with a wide-ranging crackdown on his opponents. Just about all crucial media shops had been compelled to shut or tone down their protection, and the only credible opposition political celebration, the Cambodia Nationwide Rescue Occasion, was compelled by the excessive court docket to disband and its lawmakers had been faraway from Parliament. Many individuals consider the court docket acted to make sure that Hun Sen’s Cambodian Individuals’s Occasion gained the 2018 basic election, which it did by sweeping all of the seats.
Theary Seng, who at present resides in Cambodia, mentioned she is just not an official of the dissolved opposition celebration, however “vocal, sturdy, public supporter of its coverage and management.”
“For sure, the costs in opposition to them are fully bogus as nicely,” she added.
She described the costs in opposition to her as ”trumped-up by this Hun Sen regime in its try to intimidate and silence me. They might be laughable if not for the jail time period that might, and almost definitely would, see me languishing inside Cambodia’s infamous prisons for many years.”
“Certainly, I’m decided to look, I WILL APPEAR in particular person in court docket on Thursday, 26 November 2020. I’ll seem and characterize myself for the court docket listening to,” she wrote in an electronic mail to The Related Press.
She mentioned {that a} well-known worldwide human rights lawyer, Jared Genser — an American who she mentioned had been her classmate in legislation college — has agreed to characterize her, but it surely was uncertain he would be capable of attend court docket periods, because of COVID-19 journey restrictions or the opportunity of being banned from coming into Cambodia.
This story has been corrected to indicate that Theary Seng at present resides in Cambodia, not the USA
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