In KI-Media

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Happy

International Children's Day!

The work of children is play!

not protesting for their fundamental rights, e.g. eviction from / protecting their (shantytown) homes.

A young girl from the Boeung Kak lake community cries during a protest outside the Ministry of Justice in Phnom Penh yesterday. Protesters called for the release of 15 residents jailed last month. Photograph: Meng Kimlong/Phnom Penh Post

In KI-Media

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Regional Launch of Report

Violence, Exploitation

and Migration affecting

Women and Children in ASEAN

of the Human Rights Resource Center

Crowne Plaza Jakarta, 30 May 2012

HRRC executive director Marzuki presenting a token of appreciation to Chair of ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Rights of Women and Children, HE Kanda Vajrabhaya

HRRC executive director Marzuki presenting to Norway Ambassador to Indonesia, HE Eivind S. Homme

HRRC board member Theary Seng with ASEAN Commissioner of the Philippines on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC), Aurora Javate de Dios

HRRC board member Theary Seng with the Cambodia delegates to the Regional Launching Event of the report "Violence, Exploitation and Migration affecting Women and Children in ASEAN"

Theary, UN Women Deepa, ASEAN (ACWC) Chairwoman, Melinda and Michael, and HRRC executive director Marzuki at Moroccan dinner where we were entertained by a belly dancer.

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Taken from Project Futures Global Facebook.

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A girl stands near a banner during a protest in front of the National Assembly in the capital of Phnom Penh May 28, 2012. Boeung Kak lake and Borei Keila residents gather to protest for the 15 land protesters who were jailed over disputed land with a Chinese firm. 13 Boeung Kak lake women were given prison sentences for rebuilding homes and clashing with the police after forced evictions in 2010. Two more were arrested last Thursday. REUTERS/Samrang Pring

Boeung Kak residents protest the continued detention of 15 people from their community. Thirteen of the activists were sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison at the conclusion of a controversial trial. Photograph: Vireak Mai/Phnom Penh Post

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In Cambodia, Sentencing of Women Activists Sparks Outcry

May 26, 2012
By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW
International Herald Tribune (Paris, France
In KI-Media

Many around the world have died protecting it: land. The issue is highly charged in Cambodia where it flared again last week after 13 women, including a 72-year-old, were jailed for illegal occupation of land and “aggravated rebellion” after demonstrating on the site of their former homes in Phnom Penh, knocked down to make way for a commercial development, The Associated Press reported.

The sentences, after a lawyer-less, three-hour trial, have prompted an outcry from local and international human rights groups and Cambodian opposition politicians, the Phnom Penh Post reported.

An opposition lawmaker, Mu Sochua, called on the international community to suspend aid to the Cambodian government, saying financial contributions from overseas should be given to NGOs, instead.

“I call on women’s networks across the world to take action. I call on (Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton to take action,” she said, singling out the United States.

Perhaps that was because Kurt M. Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs at the U.S. State Department, was in Cambodia on Friday, where he made plain one of his goals in talks with officials was to secure Cambodia’s support for the peaceful resolution of another, major ownership issue flaring in Southeast Asia – over the South China Sea.

“We’re at a critical period. We’re counting on the leadership of Cambodia to ensure the future of peace and prosperity,” Mr. Campbell said in a statement released by the State Department.

The latest bout of trouble began last Tuesday, when the women were arrested as they sat on sand, singing, at Boueng Kak, Phnom Penh’s biggest lake, where their homes had once been. Here is footage of the arrest. Or you can view it below above from the time it turned violent

The roots of the dispute reach back to 2007 when the government awarded the land to the Shukaku company, owned by Lao Meng Khin, a senator of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.

As The Associated Press has reported, a Chinese company also is involved in the development deal, with plans to build a hotel, office buildings and luxury housing.

Last year, the prime minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, appeared to offer an olive branch, granting some land to families holding out at the lake. But they say the boundaries of their land were never made clear, according to the Save the Boeung Kak Campaign. Pung Chhic Kek, president of the group, said lawyers from her organization were barred from talking with the defendants and introducing witnesses.

Some of the women, including 72-year-old Nget Khun, had part of their sentence suspended. Nget Khun will only serve a year.

A government spokesman, Phay Siphan of the Council of Ministers, told the Phnom Penh Post the trial had nothing to do with the government. Neither the Ministry of Justice nor Phnom Penh municipal authorities could be reached for comment, the newspaper said.

Land, both urban and rural land, its ownership, management and use is an explosive topic in Cambodia. As my colleague Mark McDonald reported earlier in May, Chut Wutty, a prominent anti-logging activist who helped expose the secretive process of “concessions” by which land is being granted to Cambodian and foreign developers, was shot dead last month near a Chinese-built hydroelectric dam.

The report “Carving up Cambodia: One Concession at a Time” shows the concessions process.

Also earlier this month, facing growing protests by villagers and warnings about disappearing wilderness, the government suspended the granting of land to domestic and foreign companies in a move to curb forced evictions and illegal logging, Reuters reported.

But rights groups say the temporary measure does not go far enough and a permanent ban is needed.

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Venerable Monk

Loun Sovath

ARRESTED!!

24 May 2012

By John Vink

Yet another very bad blow for the Human Rights record of Cambodia.

Venerable Loun Sovath, the infatigable Human Rights monitor, present on all the major land evictions the past years, was invited by fellow monks to accompany them while he was monitoring a demonstration by Boeung Kak Lake residents at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, supporting 13 fellows arrested on May 22nd. Against his will, he was then forcibly dragged into a white SUV by plainclothes and uniformed policemen an whisked away…

Sacravatoon, 24 May 2012

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Activist monk Loun Savath detained

The Phnom Penh Post, 24 May 2012

In KI-Media

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EROSION OF PRIVACY:

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING

In KI-Media, 24 May 2012

THE EROSION OF PRIVACY: BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING First published in June 2007 in The Phnom Penh Post as part of the Voice of Justice columns, which I co-authored with a brilliant legal intern from U.C. Berkeley Law School, Erin Pulaski. On 5 Feb. 2010, when this article was posted in KI-Media, the government's morality squad was in a moral frenzy cracking down on pornography.

Now, we read in The Phnom Penh Post that the government is drafting its first Cyber Law "to prevent any ill-willed people or bad mood people from spreading false information, groundless information that could tend to mislead the public and affect national security or our society. We need to control this."

Let them and us be humbly reminded of the possible dangers of over-zeal, overreaching, and hypocrisy as well as the need for the balancing of interests in light of fundamental rights, e.g. freedom of expression.

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