Mu Sochua

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Mu Sochua after receiving the Eleanor Roosevelt Award (2009)

Mu Sochua (born May 15, 1954 in Phnom Penh ) is a Cambodian politician . She is a high functionary of the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and was Minister for Women and Veterans Affairs from 1998 to 2004.

Life

Mo Sochua comes from a wealthy family in Phnom Penh. Her father owned a private airline. Her parents sent her and her sister to Paris in 1972 to bring them to safety from the end of the Vietnam War and the beginning of the civil war in Cambodia. In fact, she never saw her parents again, who perished in the turmoil of the war.

After a short stay in Paris, she came to California as a refugee in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1970s . There she attended from 1976 to 1979 the San Francisco State University , from which she got a bachelor's degree in psychology. She then moved to the University of California, Berkeley , from which she graduated in 1981 with a Master of Social Work . In addition, she was chairwoman of the local Cambodian community from 1975 to 1981 .

In 1981 she went to Thailand to work in refugee villages on the Thai-Cambodian border. It was there that she met her husband, who worked for the United Nations ' World Food Program . After the end of the Vietnamese occupation in 1989, she returned to Cambodia.

Mu Sochua is married and has three daughters.

Political activity

After returning to Cambodia, Mu Sochua joined FUNCINPEC . In 1996 and 1997 she was an advisor to Prime Minister Hun Sen and at the same time government spokeswoman for women's affairs. In 1998 she was elected to the National Assembly in Battambang . Shortly afterwards, Hun Sen appointed her to his cabinet as Minister for Women and Veterans Affairs. Under her leadership, the ministry developed, among other things, the first drafts of the Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence and the Protection of Victims , which was passed in 2005 and is considered a milestone in anchoring women's rights in the Cambodian legal system. She became known to a wide international audience in 2002 when she ran the expulsion of British musician Gary Glitter on suspicion of child molestation. She resigned from her ministerial office in 2004 when allegations of corruption against the governing parties FUNCINPEC and CPP became public.

Immediately afterwards she became a member of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), from 2005 to 2006 also its general secretary. She won a seat for Kampot in the 2008 parliamentary elections and has been a member of the National Assembly again since then.

Outside of her political offices, Mu Sochua is also involved in the field of human rights. In 1991 she founded Khemara , a non-governmental organization that campaigns for women's rights. In addition, she works particularly in the area of ​​children's rights and HIV / AIDS education. From 1994 to 2006 she was a member of the board of directors of the Cambodian Institute of Human Rights .

Litigation with Hun Sen

Mu Sochua after her conviction in August 2009.

On April 23, 2009, Mu Sochua announced a lawsuit against Hun Sen at a press conference, claiming that he had insulted her three weeks earlier at an event in Kampot, without giving her name, but with clear reference to her person. Hun Sen had spoken of a cheungklang , a khmer phrase that literally means a strong leg , but depending on the context also someone who is like a gangster, a woman gangster, a prostitute . In an immediate response, Hun Sen announced a lawsuit against Mu Sochua for libel on her allegation that he insulted her. Both lawsuits were filed in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on April 27, 2009. The first case was dropped by the court on June 10, 2009 for lack of evidence, while the second case continued after Parliament lifted Mu Sochua's immunity on June 22, 2009. With his lawsuit, Hun Sen applied for a compensation payment of ten million riels . The court granted this motion in part on August 4, 2009 and sentenced Mu Sochua to pay eight million riels in damages and a fine of an additional 8.5 million riels.

The process had led numerous international observers to sharply criticize the government and the decline in democratic values ​​in Cambodia. In two written questions, members of the European Parliament addressed the Council of the European Union and the European Commission with the request that they position themselves publicly with the Cambodian government on the proceedings with the aim of dropping the complaints. The Inter-Parliamentary Union sent an observer to the hearing on July 24, 2009.

International awards

Mu Sochua's human rights work has received a lot of international attention. In 2005 she was nominated as one of 1,000 women for the Nobel Peace Prize. Also in 2005, Vital Voices presented her with the Human Rights and Anti-Trafficking Award . In 2006 she received an honorary doctorate in law from the University of Guelph, Canada, and the Elise and Walter A. Haas International Award from the University of California, Berkeley.

Web links

Commons : Mu Sochua  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BBC NEWS January 7, 2003 .
  2. ^ Asian Human Rights Commission of April 30, 2009 .
  3. ↑ The Cambodia Daily, July 6, 2009, p. 34.
  4. ^ The Phnom Penh Post, August 5, 2009, pp. 1 f. .
  5. ↑ Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia from June 15, 2009 ( Memento of the original from January 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 75 kB). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / cambodia.ohchr.org
  6. ^ Asian Human Rights Commission, June 16, 2009 .
  7. ^ Human Rights Watch as of July 14, 2009 .
  8. ↑ Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe of July 16, 2009 ( Memento of the original of September 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.alde.eu
  9. ^ Written questions P-3912/09 to the Council and P-3914/09 to the Commission of 20 July 2009.
  10. ^ Voice of America, October 12, 2005 .
  11. ^ Vital Voices of April 26, 2005 .
  12. ^ University of Guelph, June 6, 2006 .
personal data
SURNAME Mu Sochua
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cambodian politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Phnom Penh