PHNOM PENH: The Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Cambodia has sent a press statement to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, on Sunday. The statement stresses diverted opinions on remarks made on the third of December by the Spokesperson of the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Rupert Colville.
Rupert Colville’s declarations were regarding the nature of investigation into crime-related suspects and a handful of activists. The Cambodian Mission has dismissed such declarations saying there are misleading, politicized, selective and prejudiced. They have stressed the “OHCHR is under the obligations to respect sovereignty and domestic jurisdiction of UN member states”.
The press released by the Permanent Mission of Cambodia has highlighted some of the disagreements in which Cambodia refuses. At first, the Mission stresses that Cambodian authorities have never taken any crimes reports lightly, with all investigation being deeply examined until the suspects are arrested and their crimes confessed facing a commission.
The statements have also requested OHCHR to send, in any case, concrete counter-proof of a misleading investigation, adding that is expected from all UN Agencies genuine cooperation without hidden agenda and interference of internal affairs.
They have denounced spokesperson Colville’s reference to political background of the accused as an indicative of the repeated attempts to politicize the issue. The Cambodian Permanent Mission has declared that an affiliation with a political party has never been a license to break the law with impunity, and individuals are charged on the basis of law-prescribed offense rather than because of who they are.
The remarks also clarify that Cambodia’s penal code was crafted with the assistance of Western experts, with defendants having full opportunity to be heard, including the right to counsel, and to disprove the indictment as part of the rights to due process. The Permanent Mission stands with the position that criminal justice process shall be allowed to run its course without obstruction.
At last, the final highlights of the press release communicate OHCHR to “instead of targeting domestic affairs of a sovereign state, the OHCHR should have devoted the scarce resources to address a worrying trend of human rights challenges, namely hate speech, slander, disinformation and incitement, including vaccines discrimination, disguised under the freedom of expression”.
