Key facts
- Sam Rainsy told Reuters the Phnom Penh summit was a sham and a strange summit.
- Rainsy lives in self-exile after fleeing Cambodia, where he was convicted in absentia and his party was banned.
- Cambodia's information minister Neth Pheaktra said the government had no time for polemics.
- UN envoy Tom Andrews urged Cambodia to release more than 100 detainees before the summit.
- A coalition of 26 Cambodian organizations petitioned the Canadian and French embassies over rights violations.
- An Elysee official told Reuters France had messages to convey and said the empty chair policy would not help.
Exiled Cambodian opposition figure Sam Rainsy told Reuters on November 13 that a summit of the International Organisation of La Francophonie in Phnom Penh was a sham, saying political persecution and organized crime made Cambodia an inappropriate venue. Heads of state and senior ministers, including French President Emmanuel Macron, are meeting in the Cambodian capital for the gathering, which lists peace, democracy and human rights among its core tenets.
Rainsy, who lives in self-exile in Paris after fleeing Cambodia, where he was convicted of multiple offences in absentia and his political party was banned, said the summit was taking place at the wrong place at the wrong time. He said Cambodia's record on democracy, the rule of law, human rights and judicial independence was contrary to the values the Francophonie is supposed to represent.
Cambodia's information minister, Neth Pheaktra, said the government had no time for polemics and was focused on making the gathering a success. An Elysee official told Reuters that France had messages to convey at the summit and that human rights and the rule of law were being addressed at all levels, adding that a policy of the empty chair was not the best way to move the issues forward.
On Monday, Tom Andrews, the United Nations' human rights envoy to Cambodia, urged the government to release more than 100 people detained for exercising their fundamental freedoms, including environmental activists, before the summit. A coalition of 26 Cambodian organizations this week handed the Canadian and French embassies in Phnom Penh a joint petition citing democratic backsliding, human rights violations and attacks on civil society, and called on attending states to protest.