By DPA
Phnom Penh : Five international organizations Tuesday demanded the Cambodian government “respect its international human rights commitments as well as UN officials mandated to monitor them” after it refused to meet a UN rights envoy this month.
The Human Rights Watch, the Asian Human Rights Commission, the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, the International Federation for Human Rights and the World Organisation against Torture said they were concerned about the Cambodian government’s refusal to engage with the UN special envoy on human rights to Cambodia, Yash Ghai.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has said that even if he lives for 1,000 years, he will not meet the Kenyan and called him a tourist in speeches broadcast on state radio and television.
Following his last fact-finding mission earlier this month, government spokesman Khieu Kanharith joked that Ghai, who linked arms with non-government representatives and people facing eviction during his visit during International Human Rights Day rallies, should become an opposition party spokesman.
Ghai has raised concerns that the government was using the term “development” as a euphemism for land grabbing and forced evictions, the groups said in a press release.
“Prof Ghai has drawn attention to critical concerns shared by the wider international human rights community,” Basil Fernando, executive director of the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission, said in the statement.
Sara Colm of Human Rights Watch said Ghai’s findings are consistent with those of most donors, international rights groups and UN organs for many years.
“Yash Ghai is not an isolated maverick,” she said in the statement.
Ghai said Monday he remained willing to meet government representatives, but the local Cambodia Daily newspaper Tuesday quoted senior lawmaker Nguon Nhel as saying Ghai had already shown very clearly that he was biased.