PHNOM PENH: Prime Minister Hun Sen addressed the representative of the European Union (EU) in Cambodia and said that Europe and Cambodia have different priorities, and for Cambodia, the right to life is given the highest importance and must be protected. He made this statement while speaking at the Closing Ceremony of the 2020-2021 and Start of the 2022 Training Courses of the Royal School of Administration on Monday morning, 11 June 2022.

During his speech, the Prime Minister recalled the emergency response measures put in place to control the outbreak of Covid-19, citing them as important actions made to protect the right to life of citizens. He stressed that in Cambodia, having the right to life comes first, and only then do other rights follow.

While looking at the EU representative of Cambodia, the Prime Minister said, "If the right to life does not exist, then you have no rights at all; some people do not dare to talk about it and talk about other rights instead. Cambodia has all the rights, including the right we just exercised about a week ago when we went to vote. That is the right of the democratic process. Ask if a ghost can go and vote, it cannot. So this is where we draw on experiences of mobilizing the whole nation to fight."

Cambodia had its first major Covid-19 outbreak start on 20 February 2021, wherein the Royal Government issued several emergency response measures, including a lockdown, and launched a national vaccination campaign. It took Cambodia eight months to vaccinate the majority of its target population, which led the Government to fully reopen the country on 1 November 2022, and to officially ‘close’ the 20 February community outbreak event on 20 December 2021.

The President of the Cambodian Human Rights Committee (CHRC), Keo Remy, once said that Prime Minister Hun Sen has saved the lives of the people in two major events: during the people's liberation from the Khmer Rouge genocidal regime, and when saving people from dying of Covid-19.