A Cambodian opposition party official who posted a photo of his spoiled election ballot on Facebook during last year’s general election was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in prison for incitement.
The Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court also fined Chao Veasna 6 million riel (US$1470) and deprived him of his right to vote and his eligibility to stand for election for five years.
Chao Veasna was detained by Banteay Meanchey provincial authorities on July 25 – two days after the ruling Cambodian People's Party swept an election that didn't include any Candlelight Party candidates.
In May, the National Election Committee disqualified the party – the only serious contender to the CPP – because it couldn’t produce its original registration form. In response, many opposition activists urged voters to destroy their ballots as a form of protest.
Then-Prime Minister Hun Sen was angered by the effort and demanded on social media that opposition activists who posted photos of spoiled ballots publicly apologize. Some of the ballots were incorrectly marked or otherwise vandalized, which prevented election workers from using them in their official count.
Private conversation
Wednesday’s verdict was attended by Chao Veasna’s daughter, Chao Rattanak, defense lawyers and an official from the human rights NGO Licadho.
The court announced that he was convicted of incitement to commit a crime and inciting discrimination. But the allegations were based on her father’s involvement in a private chat on the Telegram messaging app, Chao Rattanak told Radio Free Asia.
“To this date, I’ve not seen any court evidence proving that my father spoke in public,” she said, referring to the allegation that he urged people to destroy their ballot.
“There is no law that prevents him from speaking in his private space,” she said. “Each person has the right to speak.”
Chao Veasna was also ordered by the court to pay 80 million riel (US$19,600) in compensation to a civil complainant. It was unclear who the plaintiff was in the civil part of the case.
The family will appeal the sentence, which they believe was politically motivated, Chao Rattanak said.
In October, she told RFA that her father was suffering health issues at the provincial prison.
Previous prison sentence
Chao Veasna is the former chief of the Candlelight Party’s Poipet office on the Thai border. He was previously sentenced to five years in prison in 2018 for “incitement to violence.”
That case stemmed from a 2015 protest in which transportation workers – angered over import taxes – hurled rocks at the Poipet Customs Department building.
Chao Veasna maintained that he was only observing the protest and did not incite workers. He was released in 2022.
RFA was unable to contact Chao Veasna’s lawyer, Em Chantha, for comment on Wednesday.
The sentence shows that Prime Minister Hun Manet’s government is just as willing to use the courts to target opposition activists as Hun Sen was, according to Khem Monykosal, the Candlelight Party’s chief for Pailin province who is seeking asylum in Thailand
“The trial of Chao Veasna, my colleague in the Candlelight Party, shows the social injustice under the leadership of Hun Manet government,” he said. “It uses the court as a tool to destroy democrats in Cambodia.”
Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed.