Japan-based Cambodian activist demands Hun Sen and PM son release his brother

Activist Vanna Hay has criticised a border development project and says his brother Vannith’s detention is an act of ‘revenge’

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Cambodians hold photographs of their Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father Hun Sen at a groundbreaking ceremony of the China-funded Funan Techo canal. Photo: AP

Published: 3:00pm, 26 Aug 2024Updated: 5:41pm, 26 Aug 2024

A Cambodian political activist in exile in Japan is demanding the release of his brother, who has been detained in Phnom Penh in a move seen as an act of “revenge” for criticism levelled against the previous Hun Sen government and his son Prime Minister Hun Manet.

Vannith Hay, 28, brother of activist Vanna Hay, was detained on August 16 as he attempted to cross the Cambodian border into Thailand, the latter told This Week in Asia. Vannith was trying to flee his homeland just days after Vanna managed to get seven members of his immediate family to Japan, where he has lived since 2008.

The Hay family was forced to flee as public criticism of the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Triangle Development Area (CLV) mounted. A key project of Hun Manet and his father, the plan calls for the economic development of a vast area of the three nations’ border provinces.

In July, in his current capacity as the president of the Cambodian Senate, Hun Sen called on the government to identify locally- and overseas-based individuals and groups opposed to the CLV and their family members, said Vanna, the leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Movement in Japan.

Consequently, around 60 people were detained in a crackdown between August 14 and August 19. Vannith, who works for the health ministry, has never publicly expressed any position on the CLV and is not a member of any protest group, according to his brother.

“My brother has nothing to do with my political advocacy,” Vanna insisted. “He is a public servant with the National Institute of Public Health and a researcher who has been working hard to improve the health of the ordinary people of Cambodia.”