police state" in the 1980s that arrested, imprisoned, and tortured Cambodian political activists without trial. Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith criticized The Phnom Penh Post for publishing an article which accused Chea Sim of violating human rights under the Khmer Rouge regime. Khieu Kanharith said that in the Cambodian tradition, respect for the dead is very important during the mourning ceremony and that The Phnom Penh Post could be sued if Chea Sim's family members wished to do so. AKP argued, in that barbaric regime, Samdech Chea Sim was just a simple local official. AKP argued Chea Sim and his family members were also victims (of the regime) as other Cambodian people. The spokesperson of the Ministry of Interior strongly rejected the comments made by Director of Asia Division for Human Rights Watch and quoted by The Phnom Penh Post. Sam Rainsy, the leader and co-founder of the main opposition party, Cambodia National Rescue Party, and a member of Parliament (MP) for Kampong Cham since July 2014, hailed Chea Sim as a national hero and likened him to the popular late king Norodom Sihanouk who, Rainsy said, considered Chea Sim as his "little brother". Once considered as the second most powerful man in the government after Hun Sen, Chea Sim, as Rainsy said, was highly regarded for his patriotic ideals and national reconciliation after the Khmer Rouge. See also People's Republic of Kampuchea References |- |- |- |- |- |- 1932 births 2015 deaths Cambodian communists Cambodian revolutionaries Communist rulers Presidents of the Senate (Cambodia) Cambodian politicians of Chinese descent Interior ministers of Cambodia Presidents of the National Assembly (Cambodia) Members of the National Assembly (Cambodia) Government ministers of Cambodia Grand Cordons of the Order of the Rising Sun People's Republic of Kampuchea Heads of state of Cambodia Cambodian People's Party politicians Cambodian Theravada Buddhists People from Svay Rieng province