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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, right, welcomes Cambodia’s former prime minister Hun Sen during his visit to Tokyo, January 11, 2024.
© 2024 Kazuhiro Nogi/AP Photo
On August 16, Cambodian authorities forcibly disappeared 28-year-old Vannith Hay. He was detained after Cambodia’s former Prime Minister and current Senate President Hun Sen threatened his brother Vanna Hay, an activist leading the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Movement in Japan, in a speech earlier this month. None of Vannith Hay’s family members have been able to contact him or have been told his whereabouts since his arrest and remain concerned for his safety.
Vanna Hay is a critic of the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Triangle Development Area (CLV), an economic development plan involving the border provinces of the three countries. In July, Hun Sen urged the Cambodian government to “search and find out all the groups” in opposition to the CLV in Cambodia and “compile all the cases of individuals outside the country, and study their family history, where their family are if they are outside the country.”
A crackdown followed: Cambodian authorities detained 60 people between August 14 to 19 who were protesting the development plan. Vannith Hay is a civil servant working for the Cambodian Health Ministry and had not been critical of the CLV.
“My brother has nothing to do with my political advocacy,” Vanna Hay told Human Rights Watch. “He’s a scholar, public servant, and a professor at National Institute of Public Health. I call for his immediate release.”
This isn’t the first time critics of the Cambodian government like Vanna Hay have been targeted for their activism in Japan. In May, Sun Chanthy, the head of the opposition National Power Party, was arrested after returning from Japan, where he gave a speech to supporters urging the Cambodian government to allow opposition parties to operate freely. Two months later, a Cambodian court found Teav Vannol, who leads the opposition Candlelight Party, guilty of defamation and fined him US$1.5 million after he criticized Prime Minister Hun Manet and Hun Sen in a media interview in Tokyo.
The Cambodian government doesn’t like critics airing their views in Japan. On August 15, Hun Manet said, “Does Japan support the use of its territory as a base for leading protests and overthrowing [the government]?”
As Cambodia’s major aid donor, the Japanese government should publicly call on Cambodian authorities to immediately stop intimidating critics both at home and abroad, and release those wrongfully detained for exercising their basic rights, or simply being related to human rights advocates in Japan like Vannith Hay.
