1/13 Britain votes in a general election today. The result is likely to be a government that will complete the process of leaving the European Union. #Cambodia #Brexit #UKElection #SamRainsy 
2/13 This new chapter in Britain’s history gives it the opportunity to make its own distinctive contribution to human and political rights in developing countries.
3/13 Cambodia is one of forty-nine developing countries that enjoy duty-free access to European Union markets under the EU’s Everything but Arms (EBA) scheme.
4/13 The country now faces the prospect of losing that access to the EU for a host of widely documented violations.
5/13 The most serious of them was the bogus election of July 2018, in which the ruling Cambodian People’s Party won every seat in the national assembly.
6/13 The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which had won 44% of the votes in the previous election of 2013, had been dissolved and its leader Kem Sokha imprisoned without trial.
7/13 After Brexit, Britain will chart its own course on granting free-trade access to developing countries, and make its own evaluations of human rights issues.
8/13 Britain is a signatory to the Paris Peace Agreements on Cambodia of 1991. This commits Cambodia to a “system of liberal democracy, on the basis of pluralism. It will provide for periodic and genuine elections.”
9/13 The election of 2018 manifestly does not reflect the will of the Cambodia people and cannot be considered as genuine.
10/13 Cambodians want to be able to vote and determine their future in the same way that British people can.
11/13 Therefore I call on Britain to refrain from allowing Cambodia free-trade access after Brexit.
12/13 Since the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Britain has contributed a great deal in terms of finance and logistical support to Cambodia.
13/13 My country will again return to the path of democracy. When it does, we will hope to ask Britain once again for its expert help in building democratic institutions. #SamRainsy #Cambodia #UKElection #Brexit
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