PHNOM PENH — A senior UN human rights official began a five-day tour of Cambodia Monday, with scheduled talks with senior officials, rights groups and others.
Flavia Pansieri, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, is looking into human rights violations since the July 2013 elections, which brought about an opposition boycott of government and a long series of anti-government demonstrations that ended in a brutal crackdown in January.
She is expected to meet senior government officials, including Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, as well as human rights workers and others. She will visit prisons that benefit from UN human rights assistance, along with resettlement sites for families evicted from development projects.
Prak Sovannary, the wife of detained labor activist Von Pov, told VOA Khmer she was requesting to meet with Pansieri, to discuss the case against of 23 activists arrested in a government crackdown in January.
Yim Sovann, a spokesman for the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, said party officials had requested a meeting “to discuss the political situation, human rights and violence.”