Police Banned Protest of People from 24 Provinces

On June 15, 2010 around 200 villagers came from 24 provinces and towns throughout Cambodia in order to submit joint petitions together in Phnom Penh to national authorities to seek intervention from them. The people represented those villagers whose land, forest land, farmland and forest as well as homes have been grabbed, logged and burned and destroyed by those concession companies, businessmen, powerful people and government officials, who were accused to use joint arm forces, tractors and bulldozers in doing the above-mentioned activities. The purpose of submitting those petitions, they asserted, was to request some authorities, who had conspired with the aforesaid acts, to follow premier’s recommendations to stay away from grabbing villagers’ land, forest land and farmland and illegally logging trees.

The residents were planning to march from Daun Penh Mountain to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house nearby Independent Monument, but the municipal authority had not allowed them to do so. Therefore they decided to gather together in front of Botum Vortey Pagoda and then walked to the premier’s home. Once again, even though there were national and international journalists and right groups monitoring the case, the authorities still banned and suppressed those local victims. In so doing, the municipality sent about 100 joint armed forces, including Intervention Unit police, police from the National Defense Ministry, police from Interior Ministry and city garden security guards as well as authorities wearing civil uniforms from Daun Penh district. They came along with weapons, electric batons and shields; and queued up to block their access to the target site.

Participating in the above event was also a government official from the Cabinet of Prime Minister. He came to accept those petitions, and promised [the villagers] to send them to the cabinet and other concerned institutions to solve the problems. Finally, when he left, the authorities drove them out of the area at about 10:00 AM.