Eight Borei Keila residents sent to jail by the kangaroo court [-Adding insult to injury!!!]

BOREI KEILA: RESIDENTS' VIOLENCE OR POLICE VIOLENCE? An excavator demolishes a home during a forced eviction at the Borei Keila complex in Phnom Penh January 3, 2012. Local human rights group Licadho said that police officers and residents were injured in a face-off when hundreds of armed authorities tried to evict families from their homes in a long running dispute with a local real estate firm well-connected with the government. The firm, Phanimex, plans to convert the residential area into a commercial one. REUTERS/Samrang Pring

04 Jan 2012
By Ly Meng Hour
Radio France Internationale
Translated from Khmer by Soy

On Wednesday 04 Jan, an investigating judge from the Phnom Penh municipal court had decided to jail 8 Borei Keila villagers who protested against the demolition by the authority of houses belonging to 300 families on 03 Jan 2012. The eight were charged with willful use of violence and with opposition against public government officials. The violent raid and the arrest of the residents by the cops have been condemned by human rights organizations and opposition parties, the latter also call on the government to provide peaceful resolution to this chronic land dispute problem.

After they were arrested by the cops during a clash between the residents and the cops in Borei Keila on 03 Jan, eight men and women from Borei Keila – aged between 17 and 53 – were all sent to jail by the court on 04 Jan.

A Phnom Penh court judge decided to charge the residents, who demonstrated to protect their homes, of using violence and of opposition to public government officials and, in the afternoon of 04 Jan, the court decided to send the 8 residents to jail in Prey Sar prison.

On the other hand, 3 men who belong to Hun Xen’s bodyguard unit and who were arrested by the military police on 03 Jan 2012, were given education and released to freedom. All 3 men lost their houses in Borei Keila after the authority smashed them to pieces yesterday. [KI-Media: Watch your back, Hun Xen!]

On 03 Jan, the joint police force used violence to chase out poor residents from Borei Keila area, located near Olympic Stadium. 500 armed cops, equipped with shields and (electric) batons, fired tear gas and used fire trucks to break up the protesting residents, then they proceeded to use bulldozers to destroy small homes belonging to more than 300 families residing there.

The event led to rock pelting between the cops and the residents.

On 04 Jan, national and international human rights organizations issued condemnations against the actions taken by the joint police force. According to the civil society, the savage use of public force to threaten and smash resident’s homes is a serious violation of human rights, and the authority did not fulfill its duty as government officials who are obligated to protect the people.

The opposition parties, the SRP and the HRP, have issued two statements on 04 Jan to condemn the action taken by the government authority and they both blame the government of unwilling to resolve the chronic decade-long land dispute in Borei Keila.

Land dispute in Borei Keila between the 1,776 families and the Phanimex company started on 2004 when this company received a land development concession extending over a 4-hectare plot. Phanimex promised to build 10 buildings in Borei Keila to house the displaced residents in exchange for their lands. However, so far Phanimex did not fulfill its end of the bargain.

On Wednesday, residents – who saw their homes in Borei Keila being smashed by the cops – were forced to board trucks and they were taken to their new homes in Phnom Bat, located near Oudong Hill in Kandal province, some were also taken out by force to Tuol Sambo, located in Dankao district, a distant suburb of Phnom Penh.