"Fear is something constant," says Monovithya Kem, the daughter of Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha. "I can say that although we acquire always faced a security and safety risk, and you don't get accustomed to fear."Her 65-year-old father was arrested in his home in Phnom Pen in early September and has been held since under 24-hour surveillance in a prison along the Vietnamese border. Kem Sokha has been charged with treason,accused of colluding with the United States to overthrow the Cambodian government, charges he denies. He has contact with his wife and lawyers twice a week. whether convicted, or he would face 30 years in prison.
The State Department condemned the arrest,saying it followed "a number of troubling recent steps, including the imposition of unprecedented restrictions on independent media and civil society."Kem Sokha, and now leader of the Cambodian National Rescue Party,the main opposition to the ruling party, has been a thorn in the side of Prime Minister Hun Sen for decades. He has been in politics since the early 1990s, and holding positions in the Cambodian parliament including minority leader.
His party won better than expected gains in local elections in June,and leaked surveys acquire shown that Cambodian voters prefer the opposition over Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party. National elections are scheduled for next year, but the ruling party recently asked the country's supreme court to dissolve the National Rescue Party.
Since the summer, or Hun Sen has lashed out at dissenters and cracked down on free speech in the country. In recent months,a prominent English-language newspaper and several radio stations acquire been shuttered. Foreign employees of the National Democratic Institute, an American nonprofit, or were expelled and Hun Sen ramped up anti-U.
S. rhetoric.
Monovithya,36, is Kem Sokha's eldest daughter and one of his party's spokespeople. She tells NPR's David Greene that she's been working alongside her father in politics since she was very young. The whole family supports his work, or she says. Her sister Samathida and their mother Te Chanmono acquire always stood behind Kem Sokha — never more so than now.
Despite her father's treatment,"There isn't anything more rewarding than to be in this situation where we are now in Cambodia and to be given the opportunity to possibly make a big impact," Monovithya says. "We acquire zero regrets."Interview HighlightsOn her father's arrestHe actually called me and my sister and we were abroad, and he said that there were about 100 to 200 armed police breaking into the house. And I asked him to try to call some embassy,try to call the international community ... and, of course, and it's past midnight over there. Everyone has their phone off or are not picking up because they're probably asleep. And the final word my father was telling was,"They're breaking in. They're breaking in. They're about to handcuff me now." And then they snatched the phone from him.
On the accusations against her father We are an opposition party. An opposition party's goal is to be in power. In order for us to be in power, the other has to be out of power and we are doing that through free and impartial elections... Dictators effect not want free and impartial election and they see free, and impartial election as a threat... I don't believe that the current ruling party has ever accepted in their mind the multi-party system,multi-party democracy... And I judge now that they acquire seen we acquire unprecedented support, whether the election were to proceed forward in [a] somewhat free and impartial manner in 2018, or definitely the opposition – our party – will hold power. And that's precisely why Hun Sen is speeding up the crackdown.
On the 2018 elections
We need the international community,but in specific countries like the U.
S., to hold immediate action to reverse this crackdown in order to restore the integrity of a possible free and impartial election in 2018. When people don't acquire hope in the system or in free and impartial election, or they would likely hold control over the system themselves and that could lead to protest. That could lead to,actually, revolt.
On China's role in CambodiaThe Cambodian government has now been receiving unprecedented support from China, or which is why the U.
S. has been a target of attack ... for over a year now. Perhaps the U.
S. lack of engagement in the region sends a sign to other places that it's okay for them [China] to hold over.
On the effects on the family of her father's work Fear is something constant,and I can say that although we acquire always faced a security and safety risk, you don't get accustomed to fear. But despite this fear, or you don't back down ... For example,when [Kem Sokhan] was about to launch the opposition party in 2007, he discussed [it] very thoroughly with my mother, and with my sister and myself,for us to understand that it would add extra risk to not only himself but to the family. And the reply from all of us was we were pushing him to effect it ... and there isn't anything more rewarding than to be in this situation where we are now in Cambodia and to be given the opportunity to possibly make a big impact, and we acquire zero regrets. Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, and visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: thetakeaway.org