Government Officials Blast Latest UN Envoy’s Rights Report

  • Kong Sothanarith
    VOA Khmer

UN’s human rights envoy to Cambodia, Surya Subedi, in Geneva.

The report, delivered this week by Surya Sebedi to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, urges Cambodia to reform its election system and to stop economic land concessions.
PHNOM PENH - Cambodia’s top government human rights official on Thursday derided the most recent report of the UN’s special envoy to Cambodia as “not so good.”

The report, delivered this week by Surya Sebedi to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, urges Cambodia to reform its election system and to stop economic land concessions that impede the country’s development.

Om Yentieng, head of Cambodia’s Human Rights Committee, told reporters Thursday that the report was like a message in an “electoral campaign.” He also said Subedi appeared to be putting “pressure on the Cambodian courts.”

Subedi, whose reports on the rights environment here are linked to the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, has been outspoken on a number of continuing rights abuses faced by Cambodians.

Om Yentieng admitted that Cambodia’s rights situation could not really be characterized as “good.” “But Surya Subedi’s report was not so good either,” he said.