There were multiple reports of a lack of official cooperation with human rights investigations and, in some cases, intimidation of investigators by government officials.

Domestic and international human rights organizations reported intensifying harassment, surveillance, threats, and intimidation from local officials and persons with ties to the government. Several civil society and labor organizations reported after the July election that police raided their offices and the taxation department investigated their accounts.

Approximately 25 human rights NGOs operated in the country, and a further 100 NGOs focused on other areas included some human rights matters in their work, but only a few actively organized training programs or investigated abuses.

The United Nations or Other International Bodies: The government generally permitted visits by UN representatives. In March Rhona Smith, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, conducted a 10-day mission to the country. In her meetings with the National Assembly, the NEC, the Cambodian Human Rights Committee (CHRC), and NGOs, she raised serious concerns about restrictions on the media, political participation, freedom of expression, and the redistribution of CNRP seats to the ruling party contending that “peace, stability, and development” cannot be separated from human rights obligations. The government often turned down high-level meetings with UN representatives and denied them access to opposition officials, including Kem Sokha. Government spokespersons regularly chastised UN representatives publicly for their remarks on a variety of human rights problems.

Government Human Rights Bodies: There were three government human rights bodies: separate committees for the Protection of Human Rights and Reception of Complaints in the Senate and National Assembly and the CHRC, which reported to the prime minister’s cabinet. The CHRC submitted government reports for participation in international human rights review processes, such as the Universal Periodic Review, and issued responses to reports by international organizations and government bodies, but it did not conduct independent human rights investigations. Credible human rights NGOs considered the government committees of limited efficacy and criticized their role in vocally justifying the government crackdown on civil society and the opposition.

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), created in 2006, continued to investigate and prosecute the most senior leaders of the former Khmer Rouge regime who were most responsible for the atrocities committed between 1975 and 1979, when nearly one-quarter of the country’s population was killed. The ECCC is a hybrid tribunal, having both domestic and international jurists and staff, and is governed by both Cambodian domestic law and an agreement between the government and the United Nations. On November 16, the ECCC convicted former Khmer Rouge senior leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan of genocide, crimes against humanity, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. The court’s guilty verdicts were the first official acknowledgement that the Khmer Rouge regime’s crimes constituted genocide as defined under international law. As many as two million persons were believed to have died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979.