PHNOM PENH: The United Nations Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Cambodia SOKKHOEURN AN reported on the Bias of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia to the 49th Session of the Human Rights Council saying, that OHCHR in Cambodia acts silently on dangerous populist rhetoric of certain opposition elements in Cambodia, whose approach is to spread disinformation, throw indiscriminate insults and slanders, incite racial hatred and xenophobia, and call on sedition with a cash offer.

In a statement issued on March 8, Cambodia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, SOKKHOEURN AN, agreed with the President of the High Commissioner for Human Rights over the politicization of this Council and the biased version of a supposed hierarchy among categories of human rights but disappointed that the High Commissioner was ill-advised and selective when comes to the situation in Cambodia.

What the Cambodian representative is disappointed with is the statement that the strike of the former casino Naga World staff was "legal".

He said: "To state that the casino workers' strike is lawful is erroneous. The court had declared it illegal since last December. The residents had complained of being disturbed by this month-long unlawful protest. Authorities exercised utmost restraint and even knelt to plead their compliance with the Covid-19 protocols. At least 130 protesters had tested positive. Madam High Commissioner, is a proscribed protest disrupting public order and abusing public health measures a constitutional exercise of the peaceful assembly?"

He adds that an inter-ministerial meeting headed by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior is convened on 09 March 2022 to address the month-long politicized labour dispute.

Cambodia's representative to the UN also noticed that: "the year-long sheer silence of the OHCHR on dangerous populist rhetoric of certain opposition elements in Cambodia, whose approach is to spread disinformation, throw indiscriminate insults and slanders, incite racial hatred and xenophobia, and call on sedition with cash offers. Are these what you name legitimate conducts under international law, Madam High Commissioner?"

In the coming months, Cambodia will have Commune / Sangkat Council elections SOKKHOEURN AN saying an absence of one political party in the coming election, due to its violation of the laws, does not detract Cambodia from pluralism. Regardless of the results, an indisputable fact is, that voters can choose one among the 17 political parties already inscribed in the contest, whose equal political rights and dignity, whether large or small, must be respected.