Alex Willemyns
The Cambodia Daily
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Past articles by Alex:
CNRP’s Awkward Marriage Lasts, for Now
Almost four years after the union of dueling opposition factions run by Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha to form the CNRP, the party remains intact, avoiding the traps of the past despite serious differences of opinion between Mr. Rainsy and Mr. Sokha. → Read More
Defiant Kem Sokha Still Free, Still in Hiding
A free man for another night, deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha remained in high spirits on Tuesday, according to a CNRP official, after armed police spent the day “training” around the corner from his sanctuary inside party headquarters in Phnom Penh. → Read More
Ten Years on, Things a Lot Like 10 Years Ago
Recent arrests of opposition officials and human rights workers bear an eerie resemblance to political maneuvering over a decade ago. → Read More
CPP Bigger Than Hun Sen, Dissent Reminds
This impression of divisions within the ruling party was only strengthened when Interior Minister Sar Kheng last month expressed what seemed to be dissent against the blizzard of arrests amid the government’s paranoia about a “color revolution” breaking out. → Read More
Police May Choose Not to Apprehend Sokha
Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said on Thursday that police may choose not to execute an arrest warrant for deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha, which the courts say is forthcoming, if they believed his arrest would cause “blood to flow, clashes or acts of violence.” → Read More
CPP Lawmakers Clear Sokha’s Path to Prison
Holed up in the CNRP’s headquarters for yet another day, deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha was still a free man as of late Monday night despite the ruling CPP’s lawmakers meeting in the National Assembly on their own earlier in the day to approve his arrest. → Read More
If Rong Chhun Goes, CPP Can Veto Any New NEC Member
Any appointments to the National Election Committee (NEC) to replace CNRP-appointed Rong Chhun, who now faces a criminal trial for “intentional violence,” would have to be approved by the ruling CPP under current laws, a lawmaker said on Thursday. → Read More
CNRP’s Elections Appointee to Go on Trial
One of the opposition’s four appointees to the board of the National Election Committee (NEC) will be put on trial over criminal charges of “intentional violence,” according to a letter obtained on Wednesday. → Read More
CPP Newspaper Pens Article on Piseth Pilika
A CPP-aligned newspaper on Wednesday published and then quickly deleted an online article asking why there had never been arrests in the murders of starlets including Piseth Pilika—an alleged mistress of Prime Minister Hun Sen who a report in 1999 claimed was killed on his wife’s orders. → Read More
Historian Says Hun Sen Will Never Be Beaten
Preeminent foreign historian of Cambodia David Chandler has said he does not believe the country will ever have free and fair elections and that political change could only ever occur through the death or armed overthrow of Prime Minister Hun Sen. → Read More
Cambodian Issues Raised in Australian Election Campaign
An Australian opposition lawmaker representing the large Cambodian community in Melbourne has pledged to put pressure on Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government on issues of human rights and fair elections if she is re-elected on July 2. → Read More
Hun Sen Says Newspaper Could Face Legal Action
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday threatened legal action against The Cambodia Daily for having “distorted” his remarks from a speech on Tuesday, also telling the newspaper’s journalists that he would prefer they no longer wrote articles about his speeches. → Read More
Prime Minister Bans Color-Coordinated Demonstrations
Though Prime Minister Hun Sen has repeatedly warned that color-coded demonstrators have revolutionary motives, critics point to the irony of the rhetoric given the prime minister's all-black, explicitly-revolutionary Khmer Rouge uniform during the 1970s. → Read More
Free English Press Masks an Unfair Media
The government's tight grip on media has not extended to the nation's relatively small-circulation English-language press, which it points to as evidence of a free media environment. → Read More
Paranoia Setting In as CPP Ponders Its Fate
Popular discontent with the government has been met with increasing paranoia as the ruling CPP chooses crackdowns over attempts to win back its popularity. → Read More
Parties Spar, But Who Knows Who’s in Vogue?
In the absence of national opinion polls for commune elections that will give the first glimpse of voting trends since 2013, leaders of both parties are predicting sweeping victories. → Read More
Embassies Keep Wary Eye on Cases Against Rights Workers
Foreign diplomatic missions in Phnom Penh say they are closely watching the handling of the cases of human rights monitors and a national election official charged and jailed on Monday in connection with a sex scandal being prosecuted against an opposition leader. → Read More
Prisons Filling With Critics of Ruling Party
Over the past year alone, more than 20 critics of government have been jailed, and the list of those behind bars runs the gamut from lawmakers and Facebook users to rights monitors and a senior elections official. → Read More
On Regional Tour, Japanese Minister Skips Cambodia
Cambodia is conspicuously missing from Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida’s itinerary for a trip to Southeast Asia this week that will see him visit Burma, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. → Read More
UN, Adhoc Staff Charged Over Sex Scandal
Four senior officers from local rights group Adhoc and a former officer who now works for the National Election Committee (NEC) were imprisoned on Monday on bribery charges over a sex scandal involving deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha. → Read More