Cambodia genocide denial law open to abuse, say critics

SURVIVORS of the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal regime welcome a beefed-up Cambodian law that forbids denying the movement's atrocities, but rights advocates and academics warn it could also stifle legitimate dissent.

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Enacted last month ahead of this week’s 50th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge seizing the capital Phnom Penh, the law threatens hefty jail sentences and fines for anyone who denies the genocide that killed around two million people between 1975 and 1979.

The atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge are widely accepted by Cambodians save a dwindling group of ageing former cadres and soldiers who live mostly in the remote north-west.

The hardline Maoist group led by “Brother Number One” Pol Pot reset the calendar to “Year Zero” on April 17, 1975 and emptied cities in a bid to create a pure agrarian society free of class, politics or capital.

About a quarter of the population died - of disease, starvation, overwork or by execution — in the disastrous social engineering experiment memorably chronicled by the 1984 Oscar-winning movie The Killing Fields.