"More Than 300 Targeted in Lawsuits to Stifle Civic Engagement: CCHR", 30 September 2020

Some 132 lawsuits against 379 people have been used to silence expression and stifle civic engagement ..., with most of the actions brought by the government, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights said.

In a report on strategic lawsuits against public participation, based on the monitoring of legal actions ..., the NGO said such lawsuits “stifle citizen engagement through the fear of incarceration and pose large financial burdens because individuals are subjected to legal costs and large fines.”

They are “used as an intimidation tactic to scare individuals, civil society actors, community leaders, journalists, whistleblowers and human rights defenders into silence,” it said in the report, ...

Of the 379 people targeted by the legal actions, 172 were summoned by the courts, 137 were arrested, 168 charged and seven convicted, it said. Some 114 of the 132 lawsuits were brought by the government, government officials or the judiciary, it added.

Pa Chanroeun, president of think tank Cambodian Institute for Democracy, urged the government to take the report seriously rather than deny its claims...

Chin Malin, vice president of the Cambodian Human Rights Committee and spokesperson for the Justice Ministry, said court litigation was the correct action to take in a democractic country.

... Intimidation against civil society in Cambodia was also to be noted in the U.N. secretary-general’s report to the body’s Human Rights Council on Wednesday, according to a written version released ...