Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) Comment to Media – Phnom Penh, 21 April 2011

CCHR condemns beatings and arrests of lake protestors

Eleven Boeung Kak Lake residents were arrested today, 21 April 2011, during a demonstration outside the Phnom Penh Municipality office. Two of the eleven arrested are said to be children. The arrests were made during a brutal crackdown on a demonstration in which violence was used against protestors. Human Rights monitors at the scene have stated that protestors as old as 70 were beaten by police in uniform and plain clothes using electric batons. The protestors had gathered outside the office of the Phnom Penh Municipality as seven community leaders had been invited by the Deputy Governor to attend a meeting. After the meeting the seven leaders were arrested together with four other protestors.

Responding to the violent crackdown on the demonstration and the arrest of the protestors, Ou Virak, President of CCHR, a non-political, independent, non-governmental organization that works to promote and protect democracy and respect for human rights throughout Cambodia, commented:

“This is a shocking and entirely unjustifiable response to a peaceful protest by the disenfranchised lake residents. The arrests of children and beatings of elderly women represent a new low in what has already been a hardly fought land conflict. If anything, the actions of the authorities today illustrate that the rights to freedom of assembly and expression of ordinary Cambodians is secondary to the business operations of the wealthy and well connected. What is of particular concern however is the extent to which the authorities are clearly willing to go to facilitate those business operations”.

For more information, please contact Ou Virak via telephone at +855 (0) 12 40 40 51 or via email at ouvirak@cchrcambodia.org

Gen Lertrat: [Thai] Govt to crackdown on reds

19/05/2010
Bangkok Post

The reinforcement of armoured vehicles and troops in Silom and Saladaeng areas early this morning showed that the government will today use force to crackdown on red-shirt protesters at Ratchaprasong intersection, Gen Lertrat Rattanavanich, an appointed senator, said on Wednesday.

“It is likely that the government wants to rapidly end red-shirts rally, probably within today. There will be no peace talk as the government chooses to use force rather than political mechanism”, Gen Lertrat said.

The senator could not imagine what the 5,000 red-shirts at the rally site would be when the crackdown starts.

He projected more than 100 reds would be killed and more than one thousand would be injured.

Gen Lertrat also doubted whether the government could keep the situation under control as the red-shirts had vowed to fight until the last minute.

Thai troops advance on red shirt protest checkpoint

Fri May 14, 2010
Jason Szep and Ambika Ahuja

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets toward protesters on Friday following overnight fighting that killed one and wounded 11, including a rogue general, as a two-month political crisis deepened.

A foreign journalist was shot during the afternoon skirmishes, a Reuters witness said. No other details were immediately available.

The protesters had gathered outside the famous Suan Lum night market to stop soldiers from sealing off roads around their main fortified encampment in Bangkok's commercial heart.

They set fire to a bus, motorbike and tires as they retreated, and soldiers took control of an intersection leading to a road lined with hotels, the U.S. ambassador's home and several embassies, which were closed and evacuated.

Troops fired rubber bullets into Lumphini Park in central Bangkok after gunshots were heard near an encampment that anti-government protesters have occupied the past five weeks, Thailand television said.

Soldiers used tear gas and water cannon before dawn at the Nana intersection, packed with shops and racy go-go bars. Skirmishes flared in other parts of the city as the protesters remained defiant, vowing to fight to the death.

"They are tightening a noose on us but we will fight to the end, brothers and sisters," a protest leader, Nattawut Saikua, told a cheering crowd of about 10,000 at the main protest site.

Despite repeated warnings, troops had yet to seal all roads leading to the area of luxury hotels and ritzy department stores occupied by protesters for nearly six weeks, raising questions over whether the government will end the protests soon.

"An operation to seal off the area has just begun. It will take time. We are doing it in a way that does not cause heavy casualties but tightens the protest area," said government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn.

The crisis, in which 30 people have been killed since April and more than 1,400 wounded, has paralyzed parts of Bangkok and sparked Thailand's deadliest political violence in 18 years, decimating tourism and pushing away foreign portfolio investors.

The flare up in violence sent ripples through financial markets and prompted investors to buy government bonds, considered a safe-haven asset, and sell stocks. The yield on five-year government bonds, which moves inversely to the price, dropped to a nine-month low. Stocks fell 1.2 percent.

Five-year credit default swaps, used to hedge against debt default but also to speculate on country risk, jumped by more than 30 basis points to 142 basis points.

"The city is pretty much shut off right now. Everyone is on edge and tensions are just very high," said Kiatkong Decho, a strategist with stockbroker CIMB Securities in Bangkok.

"At this point, I think there are not many options left for Abhisit but to forcibly remove the protesters."

Foreign investors have sold $584 million in Thai shares in the past six sessions, cutting their net buying so far this year to $607.6 million in an emerging market seen at the start of the year as one of Asia's most promising.

CRACKDOWN

The latest violence followed tough security measures imposed on Thursday evening to reclaim Bangkok's commercial district after the collapse of a reconciliation plan proposed last week by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

Abhisit is under enormous pressure to end the protests, which began with festive rallies on March 12 and descended into violence that is stoking concerns over the outlook of Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy.

The shooting and a security cordon marked the start of a violent crackdown in which the Thai government stands a good chance of clearing the streets, the Eurasia Group political risk consultancy said.

"But it will not end the polarization that has led to the current instability -- ensuring that the pressure from the red shirts will persist and that political volatility will remain a persistent problem for Thailand for the foreseeable future".

It is unclear who shot a renegade general who has been in charge of security for thousands of protesters occupying a 3 sq-km (1.2 sq-mile) stretch of central Bangkok since April 3.

Khattiya Sawasdipol, a suspended army specialist better known as "Seh Daeng" (Commander Red), was shot in the head, apparently by a sniper, while talking to reporters on Thursday evening.

He underwent brain surgery and remains in stable condition.

The shooting sparked half a dozen confrontations overnight between rock-throwing protesters and armed security forces on the outskirts of the protesters' barricaded encampment.

One protester was shot in the eye and died after a group of red shirts confronted soldiers armed with assault rifles next to a park in the Silom business district, witnesses said. Some protesters hurled rocks and troops fired in return.

By Friday morning, 11 people had been wounded, according to the Erawan Medical Center. The military brought in armored vehicles, shut down power in some areas at the protest site and cut some mobile phone services.

Khattiya had been branded a terrorist by the Thai government, which accused him of involvement in dozens of grenade attacks that have wounded more than 100 people.

But in recent days he was equally critical of other red shirt leaders, accusing them of embracing Abhisit's proposed "national reconciliation" which unraveled after protesters refused to leave the streets.

Most businesses and embassies in the area have evacuated staff and were closed for the day. Apartment complexes were mostly empty after the government warned it would shut down power and water supplies, and landlords urged tenants to leave.

(Additional reporting by Ploy Ten Kate, Chalathip Thirasoonthrakul and Damir Sagolj; Editing by Nick Macfie and Jeremy Laurence)

Cambodia cracks down on the sex industry

April 6th, 2010
Source: Deutsche Welle

Prostitution is famously the world’s oldest profession. In Cambodia, the government recently decided to target the sex industry in a move it thinks will combat the trafficking of women.

60 brothels, karaoke bars and massage parlors have been raided in Phnom Penh and across the country in the past month alone.

Some 300 sex workers are thought to have lost their jobs since the crackdown began in early March.

Limiting access to sexual health services

Organizations that help sex workers worry it is driving them away from established venues, and limiting their access to sexual health services.

Tony Lisle, the country head of UNAIDS, the United Nations agency tasked with the prevention of HIV and AIDS, says the crackdown is the latest in a series of similar moves by the authorities in recent years, which do not have very positive effects.

“From the perspective of UNAIDS, the crackdowns create significant difficulties for organizations working in HIV prevention to reach those who are most at risk from HIV infection effectively, particularly sex workers and women working in the entertainment industry.”

Important to separate prostitution and trafficking

Moreover, although the authorities say this drive is part of an anti-trafficking campaign, so far no traffickers have been arrested – only sex workers.

Lisle says it is important to separate the issues of prostitution and human trafficking.

A survey last year found that no more than 7 percent of sex workers had been trafficked into the trade. “However, they are often the victims of the crackdown,” says Lisle.

Sex workers are losing out

Ly Pisey is a technical assistant at the Women’s Network for Unity, a collective that advocates rights and sexual health for sex workers that holds meetings for sex workers so that they can pass on information on sexual health and rights. She says that “the situation is very difficult” right now and it is hard to access sex workers.

“We are like thieves. If we want to send out a message on safe sex, we have to call some of the sex workers whom we know and who trust us to come to our drop-in centre. Sometimes we meet one and ask them to share the information and tell them to continue to have hope,” she explains.

It seems highly unlikely that the government’s move will fulfill its stated goal of eliminating prostitution – not least since one in three Cambodian men are thought to pay for sex.

However, the wave of arrests is certainly driving sex workers underground and away from the assistance they and their clients need. It seems very likely that if the crackdown continues it will result in a higher rate of sexually-transmitted diseases.

Vice crackdown raises concerns

Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Irwin Loy and Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post

HUNDREDS of sex workers have been targeted by a government crackdown on vice in recent weeks, according to new figures, sparking concern that police raids are sending a marginalised group further underground and possibly hindering HIV-prevention efforts.

Authorities as well as advocates who work with sex workers have reported a series of police raids – which have been prompted by a call from Prime Minister Hun Sen this month to stamp out prostitution – that have shut down karaoke bars, massage parlours, brothels and cafés.

Figures compiled in the report, produced by a local NGO that asked not to be identified because the issue is considered sensitive, show that since March 1, police have shut down at least 59 “entertainment establishments” where the indirect sex trade had thrived.

The raids have seen at least 280 sex workers lose their jobs, including 85 who disappeared or fled, according to officials with the NGO.

The raids were scattered across the capital and in some provinces. A March 5 bust of 29 brothels and houses in Kampong Cham, for instance, sent 114 sex workers into hiding.

Bith Kimhong, director of the Ministry of Interior’s anti-human trafficking bureau, said Monday that the raids were part of the government’s broader effort to suppress human trafficking.

“The government set 2010 to be a year for combating human trafficking in a bid to protect women from being abused or exploited,” he said.

He added that he didn’t have precise figures for the number of businesses shut down, but that officials planned to continue the raids, a decision he said was reached during a March 10 meeting between Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema and National Police Chief Neth Savoeun.

In the meeting, the officials decided “to close any entertainment places without licences immediately”, Bith Kimhong said, adding: “Or if the places have legal licences but run prostitution, we will crack down also. We want to eliminate the reputation that Cambodia is a sex tourism destination.”

Health advocates and those who work with sex workers, however, worry that the police raids may restrict access to key HIV prevention tools such as condoms and sex education.

Ly Pisey, a technical assistant with the Women’s Network for Unity (WNU), a Phnom Penh collective of sex workers, said the raids could intensify challenges that emerged during a series of brothel raids in 2008.

“Before, you could just go to [brothels]. It was easy to provide them information, to talk about rights, condoms, safe sex and how to access health care,” she said. “Now, if you go … and ask, ‘Are you a sex worker?’ they say no.”

Tony Lisle, the country coordinator for UNAIDS in Cambodia, said crackdowns that “prevent access to services for HIV prevention and other supports” could “only exacerbate already existing challenges that partners have in reaching both women and their clients”.

“The point of view of UNAIDS is that we must ensure that those who are at most risk for HIV infections are and should be able to access HIV-prevention services. We do not want to see new infections,” said Lisle, who noted that his organisation does not yet have definitive information on the reported crackdowns.

In a speech earlier this month, right as the new round of crackdowns was getting under way, Prime Minister Hun Sen lashed out at officials who he said had undermined efforts to target “human trafficking”.

Bith Kimhong said Monday the goal of the speech had been “to encourage and motivate us to continue working”.

Yet advocates do not see prostitution and human trafficking as inextricably linked.

In a 2009 study of more than 1,100 sex workers by the Cambodian Alliance for Combating HIV/AIDS (CACHA), most female sex workers interviewed said they had entered the trade voluntarily. The study suggested a maximum of just over 7 percent were trafficked.

Chris Jones, the country manager for health NGO PSI, said periodic crackdowns on prostitution aren’t unusual, particularly in the last two years, where police actions have seen a rise in the number of women working in the indirect sex trade – away from defined brothels to informal settings such as beer gardens, massage parlours and karaoke bars.

What remains to be seen is whether the current focus is temporary, or part of a longer-term surge provoked by the premier’s recent warning.

“We’ve seen these sporadic crackdowns in the past. The question now is whether it’s going to be more sustained because the prime minister made the comments directly,” Jones said. “If it is a more concerted effort, the likelihood is more women will be driven underground or into places that are harder to reach.”

U.S. Cracking Down On Child Sex Tourism In Cambodia

5th March 2010
By John Morton
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

By any measure, Cambodia has come a long way in a relatively short period of time.

Since its full independence in 1953, this nation of now 14 million has endured two distinct and lengthy conflicts, and dictatorial regime that – between 1976 and 1979 – annihilated at least 1.5 million Cambodians through execution, forced servitude, and malnourishment.

Cambodia is a democracy today, but serious problems remain.

Child sex tourism in Cambodia is a persistent, pervasive practice that threatens the most vulnerable in this developing country. In recent years, the Cambodian National Police, international partners, and a number of non-governmental organizations have worked to crack down on pedophiles from around the world, arresting and prosecuting these criminals while working to rescue and rehabilitate the abused.

I am proud to say that the agency I lead, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is at the forefront of this emerging issue, and aggressively pursues Americans who travel overseas to abuse children. Millions of children fall prey each year to sexual predators, and these young victims are left with permanent psychological, physical, and emotional scars. Many American criminals clearly believe they can evade detection and prosecution by committing child sex crimes overseas. They are wrong.

My visit to Cambodia seeks to strengthen our ongoing cooperation with the Cambodian National Police. Earlier this week, we signed a Letter of Intent to solidify the working relationship between our two law enforcement agencies to combat child sex tourism. This agreement seeks to develop a bi-national, coordinated, and intelligence-driven investigative response to the sexual exploitation of children by U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.

There is no more poignant reminder of the critical nature of these investigations than a neighborhood outside Phnom Penh, known simply by its distance from the center of town – “Kilo 11.” There, predators from around the world prey on young boys and girls amidst the shocking poverty of a Cambodian slum. Accompanied by our Cambodian Police partners, we walked down narrow streets and dark alleys where we saw firsthand the extreme circumstances that lead some families to sell their children to these criminals – many of them from Western nations.

Not long ago, ICE agents assisted in arresting an American man for abusing a six-year-old child in a ramshackle blue hut, set deep in this labyrinthine neighborhood. This individual was eventually returned to the United States and is currently standing trial for charges stemming from his arrest in Cambodia.

These types of cases are extremely challenging to investigate and prosecute, but we owe it to these young victims to take action. Tragically, many of these children will bear the emotional and physical scars of this trauma for the rest of their lives.

The United States would not be able to successfully prosecute these cases without the assistance of our international partners.

John Morton is the Assistant Secretary U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Cambodia orders to crackdown on unlicensed pharmacies

PHNOM PENH, Feb. 22, 2010 (Xinhua) -- Phnom Penh authorities have given pharmacy owners until the end of this month to complete their license forms or face closure, local media reported on Monday.

Deputy governor Mann Chhoeun said that governor Kep Chuktema last week ordered all district governors to review the status of all pharmacies in their districts.

He added that City Hall has long urged pharmacists to complete required forms before starting a pharmacy but many had failed to do so.

"It is time that they have to respect the rule of law, and we have to develop our city," he was quoted by The Cambodia Daily as saying.

Chhoeun said that there were 644 pharmacies in the capital, 116 of which had not completed the required paperwork.

According to World Health Organization (WHO) officials, about 2. 5 percent of all medicine sold in Cambodia is counterfeit or substandard, and a major challenge for the government is to inspect the thousands of unlawful medicine outlets in Cambodia, the daily said.

William Mfuko, WHO technical officer for essential medicines, was quoted as saying that the challenge lay in upgrading the unlicensed pharmacies through training, quality control and regulation rather than in cracking down, which was unlikely to work as high demand for medicine was creating the unlicensed shops.

Four killed in Myanmar protest crackdown

This picture received by The Irrawaddy, an Internet publication, shows a monk running as tear gas fills the air in downtown Yangon. Myanmar security forces used batons, tear gas and live rounds in a violent crackdown on mass protests against the military junta, killing at least four people including three Buddhist monks.

YANGON (AFP) — Myanmar security forces used batons, tear gas and live rounds Wednesday in a violent crackdown on mass protests against the military junta, killing at least four people including three Buddhist monks.

Up to 100,000 people defied heavy security to take to the streets of the main city Yangon, marching and shouting abuse at police despite blunt warnings from the ruling generals who are facing the most serious challenge to their rule in nearly two decades.

Two of the monks were beaten to death while another was shot when he tried to wrestle a gun away from a soldier and the weapon discharged, two senior Myanmar officials told AFP.

They said the monks were killed near Yangon's Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar's holiest site and a key rallying point for the clergy leading the nine days of protests which have spread across the Southeast Asian nation.

A fourth man, who was not a monk, was shot dead, a hospital source said.

The UN Security Council was to meet in an emergency session in New York later Wednesday to discuss the spiralling crisis, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose country is the former colonial power, said "the whole world is now watching Burma" and called for a UN envoy to be sent there to talk to the "illegitimate and repressive regime."

After tolerating more than a week of protests, police opened fire and baton-charged protesters who had begun to gather at the Shwedagon Pagoda in the blazing noon sunshine.

Undeterred by the show of force, some 1,000 monks soon regrouped and paraded through the streets, to the delight of thousands of onlookers.

They roared approval for the monks and shouted at security forces: "You are fools! You are fools!"

Police and troops then fired a volley of warning shots and tear gas to try to break up the march.

In a sign of the resilience and determination of the protest movement, tens of thousands of monks massed once again, marching through the main market in a protest that lasted until the early evening.

At least 100 people were injured during the day and some 200 people were arrested, as many as half of them Buddhist monks, according to witnesses and diplomats.

State television news said that one 30-year-old protester had been killed, and another two men and one woman were injured, along with 10 police.

The report said security forces had used loudspeakers to ask the crowd to disperse but that the protesters had hurled stones and sticks at them, tried to steal their weapons, and set fire to two military motorcycles.

"Because of the difficult situation, the security forces opened fire to disperse the crowd, using just a little force against the violent protesters. Because they opened fire, the protesters dispersed," it said.

The party of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi branded the assaults on the monks -- highly revered in the devoutly Buddhist nation -- "the greatest wrong in history."

Protesters ignored a ban on public gatherings issued Tuesday along with a dusk-to-dawn curfew, as the generals who have turned Myanmar into one of the world's poorest and most isolated nations tried to keep a lid on the unrest.

Wednesday was the first time violence has been used against the recent protests, and analysts said it could be a preview for an even more severe crackdown in coming days.

There are fears of a repeat of 1988, the last time demonstrators rallied in such numbers in the streets of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Then, around 3,000 people were killed by the security forces.

There were sketchy reports Wednesday of huge turnouts and further clashes with police in the central city of Mandalay and in Sittwe on the western coast where 15,000 people marched.

Pro-democracy politician Win Naing and the country's most famous comedian Zaganar were also arrested earlier for helping the monks.

The unrest began last month when the junta dramatically raised the price of fuel overnight, deepening the misery in this already impoverished country.

The initial protests -- rare in a nation where the military quickly crushes any show of dissent -- began with only a handful of marching demonstrators.

But after the monks joined, the movement swelled, and around 100,000 people marched in Yangon on Monday and Tuesday.

HRW criticized Beijing's ties with oppressive regimes and dictatorships in Sudan, Burma, Cambodia and Zimbabwe

Group: China cracking down on activists

Aug. 2, 2007
By ANITA CHANG Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

BEIJING — One year before the start of the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government has failed to live up to promises of greater human rights and has instead clamped down on domestic activists and journalists, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

China, which has long been criticized for its human rights record, has cracked down on dissent to stave off potential political instability, the human rights group said.

"The government seems afraid that its own citizens will embarrass it by speaking out about political and social problems, but China's leaders apparently don't realize authoritarian crackdowns are even more embarrassing," Brad Adams, the Asia director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

The Beijing Olympics, which begin Aug. 8, 2008, are a huge source of pride for China. In bidding for the games back in 2001, Chinese leaders promised International Olympic Committee members that the Olympics would lead to an improved climate for human rights and media freedoms.

Instead, there has been "gagging of dissidents, a crackdown on activists and attempts to block independent media coverage," Adams said.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the Human Rights Watch statement. In the past, China has said it was fulfilling all the commitments made in it's bid for the games.

The IOC said it believed the Olympics have had a positive effect China.

"While some may question China's ability to meet it's obligations related to the Beijing Games, we think it is premature to state that China has failed to live up to it's pledges," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davis said.

Human Rights Watch sighted several examples of activists who have been obstructed, including a husband-and-wife couple, Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan, who have been under constant surveillance and travel restrictions since May for allegedly "harming state security."

Others include Jingo Yanking, a military surgeon who broke government secrecy to reveal the true scale of Beijing's SARS outbreak in 2003. He has reportedly been banned from leaving China to accept a human rights award in New York.

Hu, an AIDS activist, said law enforcement authorities told him last year, while he was in custody for nearly six weeks, that Olympic security measures started two years ahead of the Beijing Games.

"Olympic security includes extinguishing all threats," he said. "The greatest threats aren't necessarily terrorists or crime, the greatest threats are those who reveal China's social problems and protest the government."

Like many dissidents, Hu is under constant surveillance by plainclothes officers. His wife, Zeng, who is five months pregnant, was barred from attending a human rights meeting in Switzerland in June and had her passport confiscated.

For foreign journalists in China, Beijing has loosened decades-old reporting rules that required government approval for travel and interviews. Yet at the same time, it has clamped down on domestic media and Internet essayists.

"The Chinese government shouldn't waste this unique opportunity to use the 2008 Games to demonstrate to the world it is serious about improving the rights situation," Adams said.

The group also criticized Beijing's ties with oppressive regimes and dictatorships in Sudan, Burma, Cambodia and Zimbabwe. China has been accused of not doing more to stop the bloodshed in Darer, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million others displaced since February 2003.

China buys two-thirds of Sudan's oil exports, exports weapons to the country and is an investor in Sudanese dams and other infrastructure projects. Beijing has urged a political solution to the Darer crisis and, as a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council, has blocked efforts to sanction Khartoum.

Steven Spielberg, who is working as a consultant on the Games' opening ceremony, has urged Chinese President Hu Jintao to change his government's policy on Sudan after the filmmaker was publicly branded a collaborator by Mia Farrow.

Farrow, a U.N. goodwill ambassador, has labeled the Games the "genocide Olympics."

After resisting calls for intervention, China dispatched a special envoy and lobbied Sudan to accept a U.N. peacekeeping force. The U.N. unanimously agreed Tuesday to send a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force to Darfur by the end of this year.