Prak Panh with Kem Sokha ahead of the 2017 commune elections.
In an article for Mekong Independent, Colin Meyn asserts that Kem Sokha’s image as the symbol of resistance to former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has been tarnished over the past few months.
Prak Panh jumped aboard Kem Sokha’s political movement just as the Human Rights Party was getting started almost 20 years ago. Sokha, a celebrated human rights activist, had recently been released from prison, and Prak had just returned from a trip to Cambodia that left him feeling despondent.
When Sokha came through Prak’s hometown of Houston, Texas, in 2008, promising to bring democracy to Cambodia, he was all in. The doughnut shop owner said he has helped to “keep the message going” ever since.
Prak helped build the network of overseas support as the party became a formidable force within Cambodia; cranked up his efforts around the massive 2013 election campaign rallies and demonstrations that followed; then flew to Cambodia to join the 2017 commune elections, Sokha’s last before being placed under house arrest on dubious charges of conspiring with the United States to topple Cambodia’s government.
For most of the past decade, Sokha has been the symbol of resistance to former Prime Minister Hun Sen’s rule over Cambodia, staying in the country as many of his colleagues ran away or went to prison. But that image has been badly tarnished over the past couple of months.
