[NOTICE: The AHRC have developed a new automatic letter-sending system using the “button” below. However, in this appeal, we could not include e-mail addresses of some of the Cambodian authorities. We encourage you to send your appeal letters via fax or post to those people. Fax numbers and postal addresses of the Cambodian authorities are attached below with this appeal. Thank you.]
15 August 2006
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CAMBODIA: Police brutality; violation of right to assembly; land grabbing; un-rule of law
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Dear friends,
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has been informed that in the afternoon of August 7, 2006 around 100 riot police officers armed with assault rifles, electric batons, tear gas and riot shields blocked the entry into Phnom Penh of seven trucks transporting altogether more than 200 villagers from Ang Snuol district, Kandal province, Cambodia (See the photo: PHOTO 1). The villagers were attempting to travel to the National Assembly and then to the provincial court of Kandal to demand the release of one of their fellow villagers, who had been arrested in a land dispute. At the police road block the villagers got off the trucks and attempted to get past the police officers. The police repelled them by shooting in the air above their heads, firing tear gas, and kicking and beating them with batons and rifle butts. The violence was instigated by the police, who used disproportionate force on the villagers. The villagers fought back with pieces of wood from a nearby construction site and by throwing stones. The police forcibly herded them back to their trucks and led them back to their villages.
According to an independent human right monitor around 40 villagers have been injured. Four of them were seriously injured in the head and on the body as a result of being hit and shocked with electric batons. Three of these injured persons required hospital treatment. A construction worker who happened to be there was also serious injured in the police attack. According to Touch Naruth, Phnom Penh police commissioner, eight police officers were slightly injured. Touch Naruth claimed that many of the villagers were drunk. He accused the villagers of attacking the police with machetes, knives, a bayonet and stones, and of sowing anarchy. However, according to witnesses to the scene, those villagers carried machetes and knives for opening and cutting fruit which they were eating while traveling and these instruments were not used as weapons to attack the police. They used stones and wooden staffs picked up from the roadside when the police attacked them.
The villagers came from six villages in Punsar commune, Angsnuol district, Kandal province, some 30 kilometers away from Phnom Penh. The inhabitants of those villages have protested since 2004 against the alleged grabbing of 239 hectares of their land by a private company. In this protest, In Soeun, 62, one of their representatives, was arrested, blindfolded, handcuffed and bundled into a police car on August 5 for alleged wrongful damage to property and violence against the alleged owner of the land, which the villagers were still cultivating. Villagers protested en mass against this arrest and on August 6 went by truck to Angsnuol district police station in an attempt to secure the release of In Soeun. They had originally also attempted to reach the National Assembly in Phnom Penh and the provincial court in Kandal city, some 11 kilometers away from Phnom Penh, to demand his release, but they could not get through to these places because the police also stopped their trucks on these routes. On the second day, August 7, 2006, they were trying to enter Phnom Phenh and then proceeded to Kandal city using a different route to avoid the police road blocks, but the police apparently knew about their movement, and set a road block a Tuol Kok in Phnom Penh, some three kilometers away from the National Assembly, and used force to stop them.
The erection of road blocks to prevent the villagers from traveling and the brutal attack on them are gross violations of their constitutional rights to freedom of movement, assembly and expression. They are highly reprehensible. The charge that the villagers attacked the police was simply a pretext to legitimise the current government’s policies and practices of using force to ban peaceful demonstrations.
The AHRC vehemently condemns these violations and urges the Cambodian government to stop these policies and practices which it pledged to prevent when it signed the Paris Peace Accords with other nations to end the war in Cambodia in 1991. The Cambodian government must also hold those police officers accountable for their brutality and give appropriate compensation to the victims, including immediate medical assistance.
The AHRC urges all countries to stop providing training and assistance to the Cambodian anti-riot police, which have so far been used only to brutally beat up the Cambodian people and to shore up a government which pays scant respect for their constitutional and human rights.
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SAMPLE LETTER
Dear ___________,
CAMBODIA: Police brutality against villagers from Ang Snuol district, Kandal
Victims: 200 villagers from Ang Snuol district, Kandal province, Cambodia. Around 40 villagers have been injured and four of them have been severely injured by the riot police
Alleged perpetrators: Around 100 riot police officers in Phnom Penh
Date of incident: 7 August 2006
I am writing to bring to your attention the police brutality against villagers from Ang Snuol district, Kandal province, Cambodia on August 7, 2006.
According to the information I have received, in the afternoon of August 7, around 100 riot police officers armed with assault rifles, electric batons, tear gas and riot shields blocked the entry into Phnom Penh of seven trucks transporting altogether more than 200 villagers, who were attempting to travel to the National Assembly and then to the provincial court of Kandal to demand the release of one of their fellow villagers, who had been arrested in a land dispute. The villagers from six villages in Punsar commune, Angsnuol district, Kandal province have protested since 2004 against the alleged grabbing of 239 hectares of their land by a private company. However, the police brutally cracked down the villagers by shooting in the air above their heads, firing tear gas, and kicking and beating them with batons and rifle butts. The violence was instigated by the police and the villagers fought back with pieces of wood from a nearby construction site and by throwing stones. The police forcibly herded them back to their trucks and led them back to their villages. 40 villagers have been reportedly injured and four of them were seriously injured in the head and on the body as a result of being hit and shocked with electric batons.
I am very disturbed to learn that Touch Naruth, Phnom Penh police commissioner reportedly attempted to justify the police brutality by claiming that many of the villagers were drunk and they attacked the police with machetes, knives, a bayonet and stones, and of sowing anarchy. However, as far as I was informed, witnesses to the scene said that those villagers carried machetes and knives for cutting fruits but did not use them as weapons to attack the police. The villagers only used stones and wood staffs picked up from the roadside when the police attacked them.
Preventing the villagers from traveling and the brutal attack on them are gross violations of their constitutional rights to freedom of movement, assembly and expression that are guaranteed in the Cambodian constitution as well as the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to which the Cambodia is a state party. The accusation of the villagers with attacking the police is a pretext to legitimise practices of using force to ban peaceful demonstrations.
I therefore strongly urge you to take genuine action to stop these policies and practices which it pledged to prevent when it signed the Paris Peace Accords with other nations to end the war in Cambodia in 1991. I also urge you to ensure that the police officers concerned are accountable for their brutality and that adequate compensation is provided to the victims, including immediate medical assistance. In the meantime, I urge all foreign countries to stop providing training and assistance to the Cambodian anti-riot police, which have so far been used only to brutally repress the Cambodian people in violation of their constitutional and human rights until the Cambodian government takes action to stop such practices.
Yours truly,
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PLEASE SEND YOUR LETTERS TO:
1. Mr. Samdech Hun Sen
Prime Minister
Office of the Council of Ministers
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
Fax: + 855 23 426 054
2. Mr. Sar Kheng
Deputy Prime Minister
Minister of Interior
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
3. Mr. Ang Vong Vathna
Minster of Justice
No 240, Sothearos Blvd.
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
Fax: + 855 23 364119
4. Mr. Svay Sitha
Secretary-General
National Authority for Resolution of Land Disputes
Council of Ministers
Royal Government of Cambodia
Address: #41, Str Confederation de la Russie
Tel: +85512 970 608
Fax: +85523 881 045
E-mail: pressocm@pressocm.gov.kh
5. Mr. Sok An
Deputy Prime Minister
Office of the Council of Ministers
Fax: + 855 23 880624
E-mail: ocm@cambodia.gov.kh
6. Mr. Douglas Gardner
UNDP Resident Representative in Cambodia
53, Pasteur Street
Boeung Keng Kang
P.O. Box 877
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
Fax: + 855 23 216 257
E-mail: douglas.gardner@undp.org
7. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights – Cambodia
N° 10, Street 302
Sangkat Boeng Keng Kang I
Khan Chamcar Mon
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
Tel: +855 23 987 671 / 987 672, 993 590 / 993 591 or +855 23 216 342
Fax: +855 23 212 579, 213 587
Email: cohchr@online.com.kh
8. Prof. Yash Ghai
Special Representative of the Secretary-General for human rights in Cambodia
OHCHR-UNOG
8-14 Avenue de la Paix
1211 Geneva 10
SWITZERLAND
Tel: +41 22 91 79214
Fax: +41 22 91 79018 (ATTENTION: SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE CAMBODIA)
9. Mr. Ambeyi Ligabo
Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
c/o J Deriviero
OHCHR-UNOG
8-14 Avenue de la Paix
1211 Geneva 10
SWITZERLAND
Tel: +41 22 917 9177
Fax: +41 22 917 9006 (ATTN: SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION)
Email: jderiviero@ohchr.org or urgent-action@ohchr.org
Thank you.
Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission (ahrchk@ahrchk.org)
