CAMBODIA: Government’s alleged attack on three labour union activists 

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that in the late afternoon of July 3 the police of Kandal province arrested at their respective homes Mrs. Lach Sambo, president, Miss Gneom Khun, general treasurer, and Mr. Sal Koemsan, activist, of the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia (FTUWKC), all working at Jenchou Inn Factory located at Kanthouk commune, Angsnoul district, Kandal province, Cambodia.  They were arrested on the charge of illegally confining the Chinese staff of that factory. However, a FTUWKC leader says that the charges are not true because the three persons were at home on the date of the incident claimed by the police. The police bundled the three persons into their vehicle and drove it along circumventing country trails instead of along the main road in order to avoid confrontations with the men’s fellow villagers and workers.

The AHRC has been informed that the arrest of the three persons had nothing to do with illegal confinement. According to Chea Mony, leader of FTUWKC, on June 16 all workers of that factory, over 1,000 in number, went on strike to demand better working conditions. Apparently to put pressure on those workers to end their industrial action, the company’s lawyer made arrangements with the local court to hear the case of damage to the factory allegedly caused by 8 workers during a previous strike which occurred in August 2004. After that strike some of the accused workers left and Lach Sambo, Gneom Khun and Sal Koemsan were among those who stayed on.

On June 20, 2006, based on flimsy evidence, that court convicted those 8 workers and sentenced them to 5 months’ imprisonment with 5 years probation and ordered them to pay damages of US$90,000. The defendants then appealed against the judgment claiming that the damage to the company’s property during that strike had been caused by infiltrators whom union officials had identified as members of the air force. At that time union officials reported the action of those infiltrators to the police but no action was taken on that information.

Based on that court judgment, on 23 June, the company dismissed Lach Sambo, Gneom Khun, Sal Koemsan and another worker. However, by so doing the company broke the law as that judgment could not enter into force as it was appealed. The company also broke the labour law which protects union officials against dismissal, which Lach Sambo and Gneom Khun are, without the approval of the concerned labour inspector.

Chea Mony said the charge was baseless since no union official or any other striker had confined any person during the strike. According to him, the strikers simply locked the factory’s gate to bar vehicles from transporting goods of the factory and were burning car tyres as part of the industrial action to get the company to accede to their demand for better working conditions and, after June 23, the reinstatement of the four workers. But the strikers allowed people to get in and out of the factory freely. Furthermore, Lach Sambo, Gneom Khun, and Sal Koemsan were at home when they were arrested.

Facing the blockade of trucks, the director of the company sought negotiations with Chea Mony. The negotiations was due to take place on July 2 to address the strikers’ demands but the talks were called off, and late the next day the police went to arrest those three workers. The accused were brought to court and have since been held in detention in Prey Sar prison. In the morning of July 6, the police and a number of soldiers said to be from the air force were sent to disperse the strikers.

The AHRC has been informed that in the same night of arrest, another FTUWKC activist named Seng Kim San, who works at Brights Sky Factory in Phnom Penh, had been beaten by an unidentified man causing him to bleed from a head injury. The following night at around 9 o’clock a FTUWKC official named Lay Chamroeun working at Phnom Penh Garment Factory was shot at by a man on the back seat of a motorcycle while riding home on his own motorcycle. He was slightly injured. He rode on while five other men on motorcycles followed him. Lay Chamroeun said he did not know the motive behind the attack, but some days earlier he had distributed leaflets calling workers to join the general strike planned for July 3.

The AHRC has also learned that, two weeks earlier, on June 20, Touch Naruth, the police commissioner of Phnom Penh, and Kuoch Chamroeun, governor of Meanchey district, led a mixed police force of 200 men armed with riot shields, truncheons, electric batons, and AK-47 rifles, to break up a march of up to 1500 workers. The police beat the workers with truncheons and stunned them with electric batons, reportedly causing four to be seriously injured. Another 15 sustained minor injuries.

The AHRC is very much concerned by the abusive interpretation of illegal confinement of persons and the application of this offence by the police and the courts to charge and arrest workers who have taken legal industrial action to claim better working conditions and the reinstatement of their fellow workers and trade union officials who have been unlawfully dismissed. Under Cambodian law this crime carries a sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment if the period of confinement is more than one month and 3 to 5 years if this period is less than one month.

Having success in using courts to silence its critics, the Cambodian government is now extending the use of this institution for the rule of law to intimidate and silence workers in parallel with attacks and crackdowns on them. FTUWKC which is the biggest trade union whose previous leader Chea Vichea was gunned down in 2004, is particularly targeted. Recently, on June 29, a senior government official openly announced these measures against workers, FTUWKC and another allied trade union. In an address to district governors, police chiefs and military police commanders of the municipality, together with 300 members of the pro-government Cambodian Union Federation, Pa Socheatvong, deputy governor of Phnom Penh, said the police should be on alert for possible protests by members of FTUWKC and the Cambodian Independent Teachers Union. He urged them to make plans to crack down on any protest.

SUGGESTED ACTION:

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