If you can't cut off the arm, cut off the head – Defamation Part II

So, thanks to a combination of international outcry and Hun Sen’s ‘vouching’ for ‘bail purposes only,’ Dam Sith, the editor of pro-Sam Rainsy Party newspaper Moneasekar Khmer (“Khmer Conscience”) was released last week.

His crime was defamation: he accused current Foreign Minister Hor Namhong of having served as prison chief of Boeung Trabek prison under the Khmer Rouge.

If you can’t attack the arm successfully, go for that which controls it – the head. Following that logic, a new move on this front has been launched. Instead of attacking Dam Sith, they’re now threatening to go straight after Sam Rainsy himself.

Problem? Yep – under the Cambodian constitution, parliamentarians are immune from prosecution, detention, jailing, etc. So what the Phnom Penh Court is now trying to do is to remove Sam Rainsy’s immunity.

“It should be remembered that on 17 April 2008, at the Choeung Ek genocidal memorial site at Meanchey District, Phnom Penh, Mr. Sam Rainsy said publicly that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Hor Namhong, was the chief of the Boeng Trabaek Prison during the Khmer Rouge Regime. He said that being the chief of the Boeng Trabaek Prison was not by chance; unless Khmer Rouge leaders ordered that he could be the prison chief, and that the prison chief was very powerful, that is why they do not want to try all of those [former] Khmer Rouge leaders. [via the Mirror]

Now, I’m no fan of official immunity, but just for the record, I took the picture at the top of this post of a parliamentarian’s card at the 2006 April 17th Sam Rainsy Party ceremony at Choeung Ek. [N.B. I attended as an observer of the ritual, rather than a political supporter – I support no formal political groups]. It very clearly states that the legal bearer is competely immune from accusation, detention, imprisonment, etc., ‘for any reason whatsoever.’