A Cambodian opposition senator was sentenced to seven years in jail yesterday for posting a doctored document on social media about the contested border with neighbouring Vietnam.
Anti-Vietnamese sentiment is strong in parts of Cambodia and is often stirred up by the opposition to undermine the country’s strongman ruler Hun Sen.
The courts, which critics say are easily bent to Hun Sen’s will, have hit back with charges and prosecutions accusing opposition members of whipping up dissent.
Senator Hong Sok Hour was arrested last year, days after Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen accused him of committing treason by posting a doctored version of an old treaty about the border on opposition leader Sam Rainsy’s Facebook page.The version of the 36-year-old treaty he posted said the two countries would “dissolve the borderline” – an inflammatory concept to Cambodians.
A court yesterday found the senator guilty of “falsifying public documents, using fake public documents, incitement causing unrest to national security,” Judge Ros Piseth said, sentencing him to seven years in prison.
His lawyers could not be reached immediately for comment. Rainsy, who is in exile in France, was also charged separately in the case.
Last month the same court sentenced an outspoken opposition lawmaker who has criticised Hun Sen’s government over its handling of the border issue to two-and-a-half years in jail for posting allegedly fake maps on his Facebook page.
The two countries have shared a testy relationship since Vietnam’s troops invaded to oust Cambodia’s genocidal Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 before withdrawing a decade later.
Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for three decades, is highly sensitive to criticism that he is too soft on Vietnam over the disputed areas of the shared border.
Rights groups have accused Hun Sen’s administration of arresting scores of critics and tying up other opponents in legal cases before national elections in 2018.