 |
| Top high ranking police chiefs from the ASEAN countries paying their respect to the ASEAN flag during the opening ceremony of the 36th ASEANAPOL conference in Malaysia. Photo supplied. |
Neth Savoeun, General Secretary of the National Police, led a delegation of Cambodian police to participate in the 36th ASEANAPOL Conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia, from July 24 to July 29, to discuss security issues affecting the region.
According to Channel NewsAsia (CNA), a Singaporean English language Asian cable television news agency, the themes of the conference are about “Terrorism” and “Trafficking in Persons”.
There were 160 high ranking police chiefs from the 10 countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) who have participated in the conference.
CNA added that the conference happened after a bomb exploded last week in Puchong, a major town in the Petaling District, Selangor, Malaysia. The explosion injured eight people.
It was an incident that Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak considered as a danger from the terrorist network in the region.
“Daesh and its cruel, twisted ideology have no place in our peaceful, diverse, tolerant country, and not in our region too. So as never before, now is the time for us to unite and play an even greater part alongside the world community in the global fight against terrorism,” said Mr. Razak.
In the inauguration of the 8th plenary session of the Asian Parliamentary Assembly in the capital in December last year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen called for more action to be taken to fight terrorism and the Islamic State (IS).
Mr. Hun Sen also said that countries, member of the ASEAN, should push their legislative branch to set policies in order to fight terrorism.
“Even though somebody said that there are no ISIS members in Cambodia, Cambodia must not neglect the problem. They can fight in other countries or regions, but they can take our country for a place of safety,” said Mr. Hun Sen.
In April, The wife of Meach Sovannara, a member of the opposition party who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for leading riots, sued Mr. Hun Manet, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s eldest son, and the Cambodian government for international terrorism, illegal detention, and persecution of opposition party members, with the court in the US.
In response, Mr. Manet said that the complaint was baseless and politicized.
“They should have accused me of something else. Millions of Cambodian people know me and see what I have done. I think they may be speechless too. I think the complaint has no reasonable grounds and it was just to draw political interest,” said Mr. Manet.
Last year, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) organized a workshop on “Financial Investigation Techniques and Implementation of the Counter Financing of Terrorism (CFT) Measures” for Cambodian judges and prosecutors at the Ministry of Justice.
According to UNODC, the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism was more convenient regarding counter-terrorism and cooperation among UN member states.
“Tracing the financing of terrorism…is the most powerful anti-terrorist weapon available to magistrates all over the world,” stated Mr. Vandersmissen, political counselor to the delegation of the EU to Cambodia.
As for Mr. Herman Longo, UNODC’s regional coordinator for counter terrorism for South East Asia and the Pacific, he said that no country in the world was immune from the danger of terrorism, because the world was increasingly more and more globalized and interconnected.
Mr. Longo added that as a result, countries in the world should address such threats before they evolve, by using normative and institutional means. Doing so, human rights and the rule of law are respected.
“Preventive efforts are maximized when there is more effective regional and international cooperation, including information exchange, mutual legal assistance and extradition,” added Mr. Longo.
Concerning the issue of trafficking in persons, the US Department of State issued a report last month stating that Cambodia was a place subjected for the transit and destination of trafficking in persons and forced labor.
“…significant numbers of women from rural areas are recruited under false pretenses to travel to China to enter into marriages with Chinese men; some are subjected to forced factory labor or forced prostitution,” read the report.
However the report added that the Cambodian government was making efforts to reach the minimum standards in term of tackling the problem of trafficking in persons.
“The Government of Cambodia does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so,” added the report.
Besides sex trafficking, the report mentioned also about men trafficking that very often finished by force labor on Thai fishing boats.
“Significant numbers of male Cambodians continued to be recruited in Thailand for work on fishing boats and subjected to forced labor on Thai-owned vessels in international waters…Cambodian men reported severe abuses by Thai captains, deceptive recruitment, underpaid wages, and being forced to remain aboard vessels for years,” added the report.
However, Phay Siphan, spokesman for the Council of Ministers, did not agree with all statements in the report. He said that the report was a kind of personal opinion.
"I don't agree with all the report said. In contrast, our government is doing its best to tackle this issue. The human trafficking issue is better day by day in our country," said the spokesman.
No comments:
Post a Comment