Theary Seng and dozens of activists, many of them members of the disbanded opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), were found guilty in Phnom Penh City Court on Tuesday. The trial is one of four cases involving nearly 130 defendants, most of whom are seen as part of Prime Minister Hoon Sen’s attempt to eliminate growing controversy over his 37 years in office. Sheng and her co-accused have been accused of trying to help exiled CNRP leader Sam Raines in a failed attempt to return to Cambodia in 2019. Sheng, the founder of the non-profit Civicus civil society organization, who regularly wore elaborate costumes at trial, walked to court in an emerald gown, holding a paper flashlight and a “Freedom” crown. “I’m Lady Liberty,” she shouted as the traffic peaked. “I am the freedom. “And I will not be the only one to blame today – all Cambodians who love freedom, who are genuine democrats, will be found guilty.” As soon as the court issued the verdict, Sheng was dragged to a waiting police vehicle. Members of the protest group The Friday Wives, who were outside the court, were pushed by the police as they fought to hold a banner. Police block relatives of defendants outside court in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, June 14, 2022. Photo: Kith Serey / EPA Jared Genser, an international human rights lawyer barred from Cambodia for his activities in representing Sheng, said the prime minister saw the activist as an “immediate threat to his power” in the run-up to his next national election. “He was not going to leave, he was not going to go into exile or he was going to back down and talk differently about him or the regime,” Genser said. “You can imprison a man, but you can not imprison an idea. And its idea is very simple: the people of Cambodia must decide how to govern. “ The US ambassador to Cambodia, W Patrick Murphy, wrote on Twitter that he was “deeply concerned” by the verdict and called on the Cambodian authorities to “release her and other human rights activists from unjust imprisonment”. Local human rights groups were also quick to condemn the verdict. Chak Sopheap, director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said authorities were “staffing the judiciary in relentless efforts to silence opponents and critics”. “No one should be imprisoned for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association, no matter how different the views they express and the political ideas they espouse from those of the country’s leaders,” Sopheap said. “This endless hunt for witches against the critical voices led by the authorities must stop.” Mardy Sheng, Sheng’s brother and opposition leader, said that more than 40 years after he survived a Khmer Rouge death camp, “my sister will go to prison again under a similar regime and leadership.” “We were expecting this, and in many ways my sister and I were preparing for it, but preparing for it is not the same as watching security guards run to grab her,” Sheng said. The brothers escaped the Pol Pot regime as children in 1979 and were educated in the United States, where Theary Seng received a law degree from the University of Michigan. After returning to Cambodia in 2004, he was one of the only activists with foreign passports to remain in the country to face Cambodia’s “political theater” head-on. He has spent the last few weeks preparing for prison by participating in video calls with former political prisoners around the world and meditating daily. “They did not expect me to challenge the case and that others would show up and start a dynamic,” he told the ruling party. “Now they have to stop this dynamic.”
