Phnom Penh: Cambodia's Supreme Court has dissolved the country's main opposition party, denying millions of Cambodians the opportunity to vote for their elected representatives in elections next year.
The verdict follows a sweeping crackdown on democracy and political freedoms in the country where Australia has an agreement to send refugees from Nauru and Manus Island.
More than half of the leaders of the National Rescue Party (CNRP), which Prime Minister Hun Sen's government asked the court to dissolve, are already in jail or have fled the country.
The court also ordered a five-year ban on political activity for 118 members of the party, which had emerged as a threat to Mr Hun Sen's three decade-rule.
The government has accused the party of plotting to overthrow the government with help from the United States, which strongly Washington denies.
Party leader Kem Sokha was jailed in a raid on his home by more than 200 police on September 3.
Human rights group slammed the verdict in the country, where they say the courts are politicised, and called on other countries to press Mr Hun Sen to reverse it.
"It shows that Hun Sen will never stop if no one is stopping him," said Kem Monovithya, the daughter of Kem Sokha and also a party official.
"The verdict is expected. It's time for sanctions from the international community," she said.
But Western countries, which have poured billions of dollars into Cambodia since a UN-supervised referendum ended years of civil war, have so far shown no appetite for sanctions against the government, which is now closely allied to China.
Dozens of police manned barriers outside the court in the centre of Phnom Penh, a yellow-painted building ornamented with gold in traditional Cambodian style. There was no sign of protests.
Huy Vannak, undersecretary of state at the Interior Ministry in the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP), said: "the Supreme Court's decision is not to end democracy but to deter extremists in order to protect the people and the nation from destruction".
But Kingsley Abbott, of the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), said the "misuse of the courts to dissolve the CNRP is one of the gravest threats to human rights and representative democracy modern Cambodia has seen".
Mr Abbott said the concerns are consistent with the ICJ's findings in a report it released last month, in which it found that the "single largest problem facing the Cambodian justice system is the lack of independent and impartial judges and prosecutors."
"The problem is two-fold: an endemic system of political interference in high-profile cases and an equally entrenched system of corruption in all others," he said.
Emma Burnett, of the non-government organisation Global Witness, said the verdict "marks a tragedy not only for Cambodia, but for all of those countries that have worked for decades to help rebuild the country from the devastation of the Khmer Rouge genocide".
"Billions of aid dollars have been spent on supporting Cambodians to develop a democratic system that respects the rule of law and basic human rights," Ms Burnett said.
"Today's news suggests that that project has failed. The country is descending into outright dictatorship," she said.
"What we're seeing today are the actions of a regime that's desperate to cling on to its power and wealth at any cost."
with Reuters
