Human rights group Licadho launched a 10-day online campaign to highlight rights violations over the last decade, in a bid to push the government to address these long-standing issues.
The rights group has so far released photos and descriptions for around 10 major events linked to human rights abuses for the years 2010, 2011, 2012. The NGO will continue to release rights violation for the following days and ending the campaign on December 10, which is International Human Rights Day.
The events highlighted traverse a range of rights violations, including forced evictions, excessive force by state forces, labour rights issues, and freedom of expression curbs.
Licadho monitoring manager, Am Sam Ath, said the group was highlighting these events to show the government that addressing them could help solve the current situation in Cambodia.
He added that the campaign would show an escalation of human rights abuses from 2017, leading Cambodia to deal with criticism from the international community.
“Take the political issues, if we don’t solve them peacefully, then Cambodia will pay a big price due to the concerns regarding of EBA and GSP,” he said.
This year will mark the last time grassroots communities and rights groups can celebrate Human Rights Day as a holiday because the government has eliminated certain holidays to increase the number of work days in the year.
Justice Ministry spokesperson Chin Malin said that there were rights violations in many countries and just highlighting them was not helpful to solving them.
“To solve the human rights issues, civil societies should bring the issue to the table, talk to the government and analyze these events together to seek a solution,” he said.
“Not just by compiling and publishing them and expecting the government to solve it without analysis.”
