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| Mother and children arrested by the cops (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post) |
AFP
Human rights campaigners have urged Cambodia to free 24 women and six children held at a notorious rehabilitation centre after a protest against a violent forced eviction.
"This is an absolutely unacceptable situation," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), who along with Amnesty International and 10 local rights groups demanded their immediate release on Friday.
The 30 residents were rounded up by authorities on Wednesday during a peaceful rally against last week's heavy-handed eviction of some 300 families from Phnom Penh's poor Borei Keila neighbourhood.
The women and children were sent to the capital's Prey Speu social affairs centre, a facility that mostly detains drug users, sex workers and homeless people.
Both the United Nations and HRW have documented suspicious deaths, rape, torture and beatings there, Robertson said.
Amnesty said in a statement dated Thursday it had "serious concerns" that the women and children "are at risk of ill-treatment", while local group Licadho called their detention "illegal and shocking".
Koeut Chhe, deputy administrative director of Phnom Penh municipal hall, said the 30 evicted residents were not under arrest but had been sent to the centre temporarily because they had nowhere else to go.
"They don't have shelter. We brought them there to receive vocational training," he told AFP news agency.
The demolition of Borei Keila homes on January 3 turned ugly with locals lobbing rocks and bottles at police, who fired back with tear gas and rubber bullets. Dozens were injured and at least eight people remain in prison, according to local rights groups.
Cambodia has faced mounting criticism in recent years over a spate of forced evictions nationwide that have displaced tens of thousands of mostly poor people.
Land ownership was abolished during the 1975-1979 rule of the communist Khmer Rouge and many legal documents were lost during that time.
The World Bank said last August it had frozen new lending to the impoverished nation over another controversial mass eviction from a lakeside area in the capital.
2 comments:
"They don't have shelter. We brought them there to receive vocational training," he told AFP news agency."
Oh, come on! Don't give me such a poor and unjustifiable excuse! You insult our intelligence by saying such a thing.
Suy Sophan's company destroyed their homes using national cops (these cops have no brain of their own; they work like programmable robots since they are also heartless!) for personal interests and gain with the approval of a silly and uncaring government.
She must pay to put all of them in hotels and/or guesthouses and must also pay for all the damages she caused by destroying their homes.
They should be in hotels, guesthouse or proper accomodation facilities and not detention centres.
Even a dog in Australia, Europe, Japan, America or Canada has a better place and is cared for better than the poor Khmers being treated in Cambodia!
The Royal Palace has many rooms and large garden areas that accomodation tents can be set up to accomodate the evicted Borei Keila residents if the government and Suy Sophan are irresponsible and heartless enough thus refusing to pay for the hotel fees.
Shaving your head to show that you are sacrificing for your people or devoting your life to Buddhism and nation is out of date unless it is supported or done in conformity with kind action. So many men in Europe or America shave their heads as a style.
So the king of Cambodia has the opportunity to open his house to provide a temporary shelter to his poor and mistreated subjects if he lacks the courage to confront those who cause them misery.
Pissed off
ខ្មែរត្រូវតែនាំគ្នាកាប់ក្បាលពួកអាចោរហារូយ!!!!!!
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