Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday dismisses international Human Rights officials' appeal for the Cambodian government to omit criminal defamation laws punishable by imprisonment.
The human rights officials say these laws are obsolete and dated from the U.N. Transitional Authority for Cambodia (UNTAC) in 1993.
Mr. Hun Sen says that the U.S. , France and a number of countries have laws that punish people convicted of defamation by using criminal laws.
He says that U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan and his aide should read article 12 of the Universal Human Rights Declaration stating this.