Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

Last week, the ASEAN leaders' summit was held for the first time in Australia. Amidst a great triumph for our nation and what should have been a positive display of unity, there was a dark shadow as threats of violence were made by a world leader against peaceful protesters. Hun Sen, the Cambodian leader, warned that he would follow home and beat up any people who protested here in Australia against his regime.

The Cambodian regime has taken an increasingly authoritarian and alarming path in recent times, imprisoning Mr Kem Sokha, the leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, the CNRP, the official opposition, over a speech that Mr Sokha made here in Australia several years ago. The Hun Sen regime then dismantled the CNRP entirely, forcing many opposition figures to flee the country. In July, Cambodia will go to an election where the Cambodian people will now only have the choice between the ruling CP Party and a number of very minor parties, none of which garnered even four per cent of the vote in the last election.

The Cambodian-Australian community has stood up bravely in the face of these outrages. They came together in Sydney last week, including many who travelled from my electorate in Port Adelaide, to protest against these threats and show they will not be cowed by any regime. Bou Rachana—widow of the assassinate political analyst Dr Kem Ley—who was granted asylum in Australia only a month ago, said she felt determined to attend the protests. The Cambodian Australians who stood with her showed the bravery of that community and their determination to see Cambodia given the same right to democracy and freedom of speech that we enjoy here.

Hun Sen's response was just more threats and more heavy-handed authoritarianism. He stated:

When you burn my image, it means you are building more coffins.

Speaking about himself in the third person, he said:

Hun Sen doesn't need to negotiate with the ones who are in jail. There is no need ... The key is in the hand of Hun Sen, and when you burn Hun Sen's images, it is the end.

For political prisoners in Cambodia, who include not only Kem Sokha but the Australian filmmaker James Ricketson as well, these threats are chilling.

Forty five nations, including Australia, supported a joint statement of the United Nations Human Rights Council recently to condemn the increasingly authoritarian actions of the Cambodian regime. However, Cambodia dismissed the statement out of hand, expressing contempt for the council as well as for Cambodians. Australians must live up to our stewardship of the Paris Peace Accords. We must speak out and support the Cambodian people. Kem Sokha and James Ricketson must be released. Hun Sen cannot be allowed to continue to trash the spirit and the letter of the Paris Peace Accords without a clear response from the international community. These responses have already been formulated in places like the US and Europe. I hope the Australian government will follow those examples.

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