Khmer Circle: No worries! This is yet another inconsequential PR show staged to divert attention from all the crackdown against the political oppositions only. Hanoi has been shipping its population and settlers across the border for about four decades, and this has been accomplished with the tacit compliance of the Hun Sen regime which is still actively eliminating anyone critical of its policies injurious to the nation's core interests. The worst thing that can happen is that some people will start confusing the smokescreen with the deceit and compliance [inaction] and human rights monitors in town crying foul!...
Kong Meta | Publication date 12 December 2017 | 07:56 ICT
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Two ethnically Vietnamese women sort their documents as officials conducted an immigration crackdown earlier this month in Kampong Chhnang province.
Officials began the process of revoking “irregular” documents from ethnic Vietnamese in Phnom Penh yesterday, as part of a campaign that some observers have labelled a massive human rights violation.
“They just started with two districts today,” Tuol Kork and Chroy Changvar, said Lou Rabor, deputy Phnom Penh police chief. “The other day they had a meeting about the implementation with the Phnom Penh governor and Immigration Department chief Sok Phal.”
The process first kicked off in Kampong Chhnang province, where officials identified over 10,000 individuals to be stripped of documents. Rabor said 21,500 were expected to be stripped of documentation in Phnom Penh. In total, 70,000 people will be affected, the majority of whom are ethnic Vietnamese.
Many of them have lived in Cambodia for generations, but fled briefly to escape mass killings at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, and have no other documentation. Human rights observers have warned that the current campaign will disenfranchise an already marginalised group, rendering them stateless.
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