Mrs. Huoy Mai, 46, lived in O’ Bat Moan, Kaun Kriel commune, Samrong district, Oddar Meanchey province was questioned on Monday, November 30 by Siem Reap Prosecutor Ty Soveinthal for the accusation of illegally logging the forests due to the complaint of Forest Administrative official there.
She was arrested on Sunday with another villager by the police in Phnom Penh, bringing the total number of arrested evictees to five. Three were captured immediately after the eviction and were being held on the same charges. The other villager who had been also caught the same day, Vey Sarin, was released later that day.
Mr. Huoy Chhuoy, a former village chief and Mrs. Huoy Mai’s brother asserted his sister had not logged the forests as accused by the authority there. This was the way that they [the authority] wanted to shut up other villagers, who still fought again the company.
He also urged the authority that they would rather file a complaint against the Angkor Sugar Company because they had cut down a lot of forests since they started running their development project.
According to the investigation, those concern authorities, listed up from Forest Administrative officials, provincial and district officials, court officials to police, military police and security guards, had abused the international and Cambodian laws by using all means to evict the villages out of the area so that Ly Yongphat Co was able to conduct sugar cane plantation, such as burning 129 houses, arresting the protesters, assaulting and intimidating to capture, and forcing to accept an inappropriate compensation; and finally using the court system to shut up their mouths from protesting against them as well as the company.
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