Preah Sihanouk Provincial Television, August 9. On August 8, Thailand’s Ramkhamhaeng University unanimously voted at its ninth university council meeting to revoke the honorary doctorate in political science it awarded Samdech Hun Sen in 2001. The university said Hun Sen’s conduct ran counter to the principle of promoting peace and friendship.
On November 13, 2009, Thai outlet MGR Online reported that 37 Thai MPs and senators had signed a letter addressed to Chai Chidchob, then president of Thailand’s National Assembly. They asked him to forward it to the council of Ramkhamhaeng University to consider revoking the honorary doctorate in political science awarded to Hun Sen, then Cambodia’s prime minister.
The university’s statement said Hun Sen, in his capacity as president of the Cambodian Senate, had recently been accused of supporting violence against Thai citizens and undermining Thai sovereignty in border affairs, escalating the conflict between the two sides. The university said that conduct was incompatible with the spirit in which the degree was awarded and revoked it with immediate effect.
On the same day, Samdech Hun Sen said on social media that the university did not need to revoke his degree because he had thrown it into a toilet back in 2008, when, he said, Thai troops invaded Cambodia’s Preah Vihear Temple. He said the certificate meant nothing to him and credited his knowledge to the Cambodian people and his country’s education system rather than to any foreign school.
Compiled by Preah Sihanouk Provincial Television.
