Cambodia's drug detention hell

A Cambodian boy inhales spirit from glue in a plastic bag in the streets of Phnom Penh city. Photograph: AFP PHOTO /Chhoy Pisei

Thursday, 26 July 2012
David Boyle and Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post

A child in a Cambodian drug rehabilitation centre was forced to perform oral sex on a military police commander while women in the same institutions have been raped for days on end, a damning new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) has found.

The study titled Torture in the Name of Treatment: Human Rights Abuses in Vietnam, China, Cambodia, and Lao PDR, also found Cambodian inmates were forced to build houses for guards and were often detained despite no clear evidence they were addicted to drugs.

Treatments shown to work based on evidence are absent from the centres in Cambodia and Vietnam, yet despite this and the systematic abuse uncovered, donors and UN agencies working with relevant government authorities did little to intervene, the report states.

Cambodian children told Human Rights Watch of how they were beaten, shocked with electric batons and subjected to sexual abuse by staff.

“Some massages I had to give were sexual ... if I did not do this, he would beat me. The commander asked me to ‘eat ice cream’ [perform oral sex]. I refused, and he slapped me ... Performing oral sex happened many times ... how could I refuse?” it quoted an anonymous child as saying.

Torture in the Name of Treatment: Human Rights Abuses in Vietnam, China, Cambodia, and Lao PDR

https://www.box.com/s/e9bb0e0fb117e54b4034

Investigate torture claims more vigorously, UN urges

Friday, 25 November 2011
Sen David and Mary Kozlovski
The Phnom Penh Post

Allegations of torture and ill treatment at prisons and drug detention centres should be investigated more vigorously and better access to such facilities permitted in order to monitor conditions for detainees, a United Nations representative said in the capital yesterday.

At a conference on the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture – which was ratified by Cambodia in 2007 – deputy representative at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia, James Heenan, said there should be an independent body to monitor “places of detention”.

“I think we need to accelerate the process, so that more visits are taking place and more cases of allegations of torture are being addressed,” he said.

Rights Investigation Alleges Abuse at Aid Organization

Cambodian drug users, who declined to be identified, show arms at the place where they live and use narcotics behind a pagoda in Phnom Penh. (Photo: AP)

Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Thursday, 12 August 2010

“I lived with the organization for two years, but I moved away from the area, because my 13-year-old daughter was raped by a security guard.”

A major rights group is calling on the government to investigate abuses allegedly carried out by an organization set up to help with AIDS and drug abuse.

In a statement issued Thursday, Adhoc said the Administration of Drugs and AIDS Research and Prevention organization had committed “serious human rights violations,” including “land rights violations of 57 families...many raping cases, physical and mental torture...intimidation and arm[ed] threats.”

The Preah Vihear province research organization, ADASP, is directed by a powerful businessman and two-star general named Pen Lim.

“I lived with the organization for two years, but I moved away from the area, because my 13-year-old daughter was raped by a security guard,” Khim Khon, a 54-year-old villager in Kantout commune, told reporters in Phnom Penh Thursday. “When I complained about the rape of my daughter, the security guard of the organization hand-cuffed me and beat me and made me spend the night in the office of the organization.”

Khim Khon said she had bought land from ADASP, which had been granted a concession by the national government, but she has moved away.

Pao Pok, a 74-year-old former resident at ADASP, told reporters his niece was raped in 2008 by ADASP security guards.

Pao Pok said his complaints to Pen Lim were ignored. He said living in the guarded compound was like living as a trapped animal.

Pen Lim could not be reached for comment Thursday. However, Tol Ret, a representative of the organization, denied Adhoc's allegations.

Sok Hay, governor of Choam Ksann district, where the organization operates, told VOA Khmer by phone he had received complaints from villagers. Authorities will now be investigating the allegations, he said.

Violent abuse in drug treatment centers continues in Cambodia

Glue sniffing is the preferred substance of abuse for children in Cambodia (Photo credit: Creative Commons)

By Rachel Pollock

25 February 2010 [MediaGlobal]: In response to a recent Human Rights Watch report on violent abuse in drug treatment centers in Cambodia, human rights activists are urging United Nations agencies to speak out on the issue. On 16 February 2010, UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Phnom Penh issued a report stating that the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) has requested that UN Country Team in Cambodia support a provision that would limit the number of compulsory treatment centers in Cambodia by 2015. The RGC is currently working on a proposal to provide community-based drug treatment centers in the Cambodian communities. While progress is encouraging, several UN organizations are still denying these claims of violent abuse and continue to provide monetary support for these drug treatment centers.

Last month Human Rights Watch issued a 93-page report on the atrocities being committed in drug detention centers in Cambodia. The report outlined torture in the form of beatings, whippings and electric shock in 11 drug treatment centers in Cambodia. Drug dependence in Cambodia has seen a dramatic increase over the last decade with the escalating rates of methamphetamine use and the increasing number of children addicted to drugs. Exact figures for drug prevalence in Cambodia differ greatly among UN agencies and government organizations, but the UNODC estimates that 4 percent of the entire population suffers from drug addiction, which is approximately 500,000 people.

David Harding, who is the drug specialist for the NGO Friends International, told MediaGlobal, “The impact on individuals using illicit drugs, most especially [on] socio-economic and health [factors] (including HIV) has been compounded by the slow response in providing services in prevention and risk reduction.” The National Authority for Combating Drugs in Cambodia has reported that children under the age of 18 accounted for 24 percent of drug prevalence. Furthermore, 2,382 people were detained in 2008, which is a 40 percent increase from the year before. Of this population, only 1 percent checked into health facilities voluntarily.

Drug detention centers in Cambodia are run by military police and often detain not only drug users, but also the mentally ill, street kids, homeless people, and even gamblers. Joe Amon, who is the director of the Health and Human Rights Division of the HRW told MediaGlobal, “There is a simplistic understanding of drug dependence in Cambodia: drug dependence is equated with moral weakness. Hence ‘treatment’ requires locking people up, forcing them to sweat to remove drugs from their system and beating them to strengthen their resolve to stay off drugs.” The Interior Ministry spokesperson Khieu Sopheak told the press that drug abusers “need to do labor and hard work and sweating – that is one of the main ways to make drug-addicted people become normal people.”

While the societal perception of drug addiction in Cambodia is quite different than in other parts of the world, many of the people that enter drug rehabilitation centers have no clinical need for drug abuse treatment. Amon told MediaGlobal, “In practice, the government drug detention centers also function as a convenient means of removing people with apparent mental illnesses from the general community. As with the detention of street children and homeless people, the detention of the mentally ill appears driven by the government’s desire to keep the streets clean. This illegal detention is an abuse of their rights in and of itself, but it also exposes such people to acts of cruelty by center staff.”

Since the media attention brought about by the HRW report, several United Nations agencies are taking the issue of mental rehabilitation in Cambodia very seriously. Organizations like UNAIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO) have spoken out publicly on the matter. However, organizations that work closely with the Cambodian government such as the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UNODC have been reluctant to take any drastic measures in preventing the abuse.

Cambodian Addicts Abused in Detention, Rights Group Says

A woman in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, prepared to inject herself with heroin in a back alley used by addicts, like those in the background. (Photo: Justin Mott for The New York Times)
Treatment for the addicts "involving both the physical abuse and the involuntary administration of an experimental drug" have stirred concern in Cambodia since they were documented recently by the New York-based monitoring group Human Rights Watch. (Photo: Justin Mott for The New York Times)

February 15, 2010
By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Nguyen Minh Tam said he got used to the routine during three months in a government drug detention center, although he sometimes lost consciousness: three punches to the chest when he woke up in the morning and three more before he went to bed.

Addiction in Cambodia Another heroin addict said he was whipped until he passed out with a twisted metal wire as thick as his thumb. “They used a blanket to cover me, and they beat me,” said the detainee, who insisted that only his first name, Chandara, be used. “There were 10 of them beating me.”

Ban Sophea, on the other hand, an emaciated man who supports his heroin habit by collecting used cans and bottles, said things were quite different for him during a carefully monitored 10-day detention.

“They gave us medicine three times a day from a bottle that looked like a whiskey bottle,” he said. “The rest of the time we just wasted time and ate. They let us dance and eat cake. We were eating all the time.”

These treatments — both the physical abuse and the involuntary administration of an experimental drug — have stirred concern in Cambodia since they were documented recently by the New York-based monitoring group Human Rights Watch.

In a report last month, Human Rights Watch described in detail abuses in 11 government-run centers that included electric shocks, beatings, rapes, forced labor and forced donations of blood.

“Sadistic violence, experienced as spontaneous and capricious, is integral to the way in which these centers operate,” the report said. “Human Rights Watch found the practice of torture and inhuman treatment to be widely practiced throughout Cambodia’s drug detention centers.”

This description echoes a separate Human Rights Watch report, also issued in January, about compulsory drug detention centers in China that it said denied inmates treatment for drug dependence and “put them at risk of physical abuse and unpaid forced labor.”

In Cambodia, the government dismissed the report as being “without any valid grounds” but did not address most of its allegations.

“The centers are not detention or torture centers,” said Meas Virith, deputy secretary of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, at a news conference this month. “They are open to the public and are not secret centers.”

In December, the government tried another approach that also drew criticism from rights groups and health professionals: administration of an experimental herbal drug imported from Vietnam but not registered for use in Cambodia.

Twenty-one drug users were taken to one of the drug treatment centers and administered a potion called “bong sen” for 10 days before being released to their homes or to the streets. No systematic follow-up was done, and the national drug authority conceded that at least some of those treated returned to drug use.

“No information is known to exist as to the efficacy of this claimed medicine for the detoxification of opiate dependent people, nor to its side effects or interactions with other drugs,” said Graham Shaw, an expert on drug dependence and harm reduction with the World Health Organization in Phnom Penh, in a briefing note in early December.

Like its neighbors, Cambodia has experienced a surge in recent years in the use of methamphetamines, known here and in Thailand as “crazy medicine.” A smaller number of people are heroin users.

Vietnam has a network of drug treatment centers and is reported to be widely using the herbal drug in detoxification treatments. In 2003, Thailand embarked on a “war on drugs” in which an estimated 2,800 people suspected of being dealers were summarily shot and killed.

Apart from the 11 government-run centers, drug users in Cambodia have few places to turn for help with addictions. In some cases, desperate families commit their relatives to the centers, but most former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they had been locked up there against their will.

The centers appear to be used not only for drug users but also as a means to clear the streets of vagrants, beggars, prostitutes and the mentally ill, according to Human Rights Watch and the reports of other former detainees.

Government figures for drug use in Cambodia are unreliable and range from about 6,000 to 20,000. The United Nations has estimated that as many as half a million people in Cambodia may be drug users.

In 2008, the National Authority for Combating Drugs reported that 2,382 people were detained in government drug detention centers, almost all of them involuntarily. Some families, with no other recourse, pay the centers to take in relatives for what they hope will be a cold-turkey cure.

“If Cambodian authorities think they are reducing drug dependency through the policy of compulsory detention at these centers, they are wrong,” said the report by Human Rights Watch. “There is no evidence that forced physical exercise, forced labor and forced military drills have any therapeutic benefit whatsoever.”

Like other former detainees, Mr. Tam, 25, an ethnic Vietnamese, said he was committed involuntarily along with other drug users and street people. He confirmed allegations in the report that a number of the detainees were children.

He described what he called the “eight punishments” — painful and humiliating exercises that included rolling shirtless on the ground, running into walls and a series of physical contortions with names like leopard crawl, hopping like a frog, vampire jumping and shooting Rambo.

“I think this is not treatment,” he said. “This is torture.”

As soon as he was released, he said, he resumed his heroin habit.

“Inside, you are thinking of drugs all the time,” he said. “When you come out, you are free to use again.”

Abuses of Cambodian Addicts in Detention Is Widespread, Report Says

February 15, 2010
By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times

PHNOM PENH — Nguyen Minh Tam said he got used to the routine during three months in a government drug detention center, although he sometimes lost consciousness: three punches to the chest when he woke up in the morning and three more before he went to bed.

Another heroin addict said he was whipped until he passed out with a twisted metal wire as thick as his thumb. “They used a blanket to cover me and they beat me,” said the detainee, who insisted that only his first name, Chandara, be used. “There were 10 of them beating me.”

Ban Sophea, on the other hand, an emaciated man who supports his heroin habit by collecting used cans and bottles, said things were quite different for him during a carefully monitored 10-day detention.

“They gave us medicine three times a day from a bottle that looked like a whisky bottle,” he said. “The rest of the time we just wasted time and ate. They let us dance and eat cake. We were eating all the time.”

These treatments — both the physical abuse and the involuntary administration of an experimental drug — have stirred concern in Cambodia since they were documented recently by the New York-based monitoring group Human Rights Watch.

In a report last month, Human Rights Watch described in detail abuses in 11 government-run centers that included electric shocks, beatings, rape, forced labor and forced donations of blood.

“Sadistic violence, experienced as spontaneous and capricious, is integral to the way in which these centers operate,” the report said. “Human Rights Watch found the practice of torture and inhuman treatment to be widely practiced throughout Cambodia’s drug detention centers.”

This description echoes a separate Human Rights Watch report, also issued in January, about compulsory drug detention centers in China that it said deny their inmates treatment for drug dependency and “put them at risk of physical abuse and unpaid forced labor.”

In Cambodia, the government dismissed the report as being “without any valid grounds” but did not address most of its allegations.

“The centers are not detention or torture centers,” said Meas Virith, deputy secretary of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, at a news conference early this month. “They are open to the public and are not secret centers.”

In December, the government tried another approach that also drew criticism from rights groups and health professionals: administration of an experimental herbal drug imported from Vietnam but not registered for use in Cambodia.

Twenty-one drug users were taken to one of the drug treatment centers and administered a potion called “bong sen” for 10 days before being released to their homes or to the streets. No systematic follow-up was done, and the national drug authority conceded that at least some of those treated returned to drug use.

“No information is known to exist as to the efficacy of this claimed medicine for the detoxification of opiate dependent people, nor to its side effects or interactions with other drugs,” said Graham Shaw, an expert on drug dependence and harm reduction with the World Health Organization in Phnom Penh, in a briefing note in early December.

Like its neighbors, Cambodia has experienced a surge in recent years in the use of methamphetamines, known here and in Thailand as “crazy medicine.” A smaller number of people are heroin users.

Vietnam has a network of drug treatment centers and is reported to be widely using the herbal drug in detoxification treatments. In 2003, Thailand embarked on a “war on drugs” in which an estimated 2,800 people said to be dealing drugs were summarily shot and killed.

Apart from the 11 government-run centers, drug users in Cambodia have few places to turn for help with their addictions. In some cases, desperate families commit their relatives to the centers, but most former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they had been locked up there against their will.

The centers appear to be used not only for drug users but as a means to clear the streets of vagrants, beggars, prostitutes and the mentally ill, according to Human Rights Watch and the reports of other former detainees.

Government figures for drug use in Cambodia are unreliable and range from about 6,000 to 20,000. The United Nations has estimated that as many as half a million people in Cambodia may be drug users.

In 2008 the National Authority for Combating Drugs reported that 2,382 people were detained in government drug detention centers, almost all of them involuntarily. Some families, with no other recourse, pay the centers to take in relatives for what they hope will be a cold-turkey cure.

“If Cambodian authorities think they are reducing drug dependency through the policy of compulsory detention at these centers, they are wrong,” said the report by Human Rights Watch. “There is no evidence that forced physical exercise, forced labor and forced military drills have any therapeutic benefit whatsoever.”

Like other former detainees, Mr. Tam, 25, an ethnic Vietnamese, said he was committed involuntarily along with other drug users and street people. He confirmed allegations in the report that a number of the detainees were children.

He described what he called the “eight punishments” — painful and humiliating exercises that included rolling shirtless on the ground, running into walls and a series of physical contortions with names like leopard crawl, hopping like a frog, vampire jumping and shooting Rambo.

“I think this is not treatment; this is torture,” he said.

As soon as he was released, he said, he resumed his heroin habit.

“Inside you are thinking of drugs all the time,” he said. “When you come out you are free to use again.”

Rights Group Urges Review of Drug Detentions

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
01 February 2010

A leading rights group has urged the United Nations to reconsider its support of government drug rehabilitation centers, following allegations of abuse.

“UN officials agree that these centers are illegal and abusive,” Joe Amon, health and human rights director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “Now Unicef and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime need to make clear to the Cambodian government that the centers should be shut down.”

A new Human Rights Watch report alleges that government rehab centers forcibly detain suspected drug addicts, who are “often forced to work at hard manual labor or exercise as a means of ‘treatment.’”

Anand Chaudhuri, project coordinator for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Cambodia, said treatment could not be effective in an environment of detention.

“You cannot detain somebody and say that it is treatment,” he said. “We have to have some evidence, and we have to give the choice. Then only it works.”

Khieu Samon, deputy director of the Ministry of Interior’s traffic and crime department, said Monday the report by Human Rights Watch was “not true.”

“The drug center is not a place to detain or commit abuse to drug users,” he said. “Normally, we receive the request from drug users and the parents of drug users to cure the child in the center.”

Cambodia: UN Should Review Role in Drug Detention

Source: Human Rights Watch
For Immediate Release

Cambodia: UN Should Review Role in Drug Detention

Press Government to Investigate, Close Down Abusive Programs, Hold Torturers Accountable

(New York, January 31, 2010) – The United Nations should conduct a thorough review of its support for Cambodia’s drug detention centers, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch issued a 93-page report, “Skin on the Cable,” on January 25, 2010, with reports of widespread beatings, whippings, and electric shock to detainees, including children and individuals with mental disabilities, in seven Cambodian drug detention centers.

In response, several United Nations agencies, including the joint UN program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), have spoken out about the abuses. But the two UN agencies that work most closely with the government in detention centers and on drug policy, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), have been less vocal.

“UN officials agree that these centers are illegal and abusive,” said Joe Amon, health and human rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Now UNICEF and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime need to make clear to the Cambodian government that the centers should be shut down.”

The Cambodian government is in the process of finalizing a new law on drug control, with technical support from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. But the draft law, a copy of which was obtained by Human Rights Watch, does not provide adequate protection against abuse for children and adults forcibly detained under the guise of providing them with treatment for drug dependency.

In particular, the draft law purports to offer immunity from prosecution to "officers who implement drug treatment and rehabilitation measures in accordance with the right to drug treatment." International law does not permit immunity for officials who commit serious abuses – including ill-treatment and torture – in the course of their duties.

“The UN agency responsible for drug control should forcefully oppose any laws that do not meet international standards,” Amon said. “The draft law on drug control would protect abusers and violate Cambodia's human rights obligations.”

According to its web site, the UNODC office in Cambodia has supported the government since 2001 in developing “effective approaches and techniques to deal with drug abuse” and “coordinated, community-based drug abuse counseling, treatment and rehabilitation care programs." Part of that support has involved technical assistance, with more than US$1 million earmarked for the development of community-based treatment.

The Human Rights Watch report revealed that, among other abuses in the detention centers, detainees are often forced to work at hard manual labor or exercise as a means of “treatment.” Human Rights Watch said that comments to the press by Interior Ministry spokesperson, Khieu Sopheak, that labor and “sweating” were “one of the main ways to make drug-addicted people to become normal people,” demonstrated that the Cambodian government is not committed to international standards. The remarks also show that the UN Office on Drug and Crime’s engagement with the government has not yet built sufficient understanding and capacity to provide effective treatment, Human Rights Watch said.

Since the release of the Human Rights Watch report last week, UNICEF has faced intense public scrutiny for involvement in the Choam Chao “youth rehabilitation centre.” A representative of the European Union has called for an investigation to determine if EU funding for UNICEF has supported human rights violations in the centers. UNICEF officials have said that they have supported government monitoring of the facilities and have not been aware of any abuses. The project is in the final year of funding, and plans for continued engagement are under review.

“We met with UNICEF in Cambodia last September about these abuses, and they told us they would investigate,” Amon said. “But they haven’t, and they continue to claim that children are in these centers voluntarily.”

UNICEF also refused to share with Human Rights Watch their reports of past assessments conducted in collaboration with the Cambodian government.

Cambodian government officials have refused to meet with Human Rights Watch since the report was released and did not respond to written requests for information as the report was being prepared. Government and detention center officials have been quoted in local and international press reports denying the most severe abuses, though acknowledging physically punishing and drugging detainees.

In an interview with Radio Australia, Nean Sokhim, director of a center in Phnom Penh, said that detainees are given drugs to keep them from escaping. The commander of the military police detention center in the province of Banteay Meanchay described to the press how detainees at his center were forced to stand in the sun or "walk like monkeys" as punishment for attempting to escape.

“The Cambodian government needs to investigate these centers and hold those responsible for these abuses accountable,” Amon said. “Instead of remaining silent, the United Nations should review its programs and support for these centers, and work with the government to shut them down.”

“‘Skin on the Cable’: The Illegal Arrest, Arbitrary Detention and Torture of People Who Use Drugs in Cambodia” is available at:
http://www.hrw.org/node/87692

For more information, please contact:
In New York, Joe Amon (English): +1-917-519-8930 (mobile); or amonj@hrw.org
In New York, Rebecca Schleifer (Spanish, English): +1-646-331-0324 (mobile); or schleir@hrw.org

Southeast Asia: Human Rights Watch Charges Torture, Rape, Illegal Detentions at Cambodian Drug "Rehab" Centers, Demands Shutdown

From Drug War Chronicle, Issue #618
1/29/10

In a scathing 93-page report released today, the international human rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Cambodian drug detention centers of torturing and raping detainees, imprisoning children and the mentally ill, and illegally detaining and imprisoning drug users. The centers are beyond reform and should be closed, the group said.

"Individuals in these centers are not being treated or rehabilitated, they are being illegally detained and often tortured," said Joseph Amon, director of the Health and Human Rights division at HRW. "These centers do not need to be revamped or modified; they need to be shut down."

The report cited detailed testimonies from detainees who were raped by center staff, beaten with electric cables, shocked with cattle prods, and forced to give blood. It also found that drug users were "cured" of their conditions by being forced to undergo rigorous military-style drills to sweat the drugs out of their systems.

"[After arrest] the police search my body, they take my money, they also keep my drugs... They say, 'If you don't have money, why don't you go for a walk with me?... [The police] drove me to a guest house.... How can you refuse to give him sex? You must do it. There were two officers. [I had sex with] each one time. After that they let me go home," said Minea, a woman in her mid-20's who uses drugs, explaining how she was raped by two police officers.

"[A staff member] would use the cable to beat people... On each whip the person's skin would come off and stick on the cable," said M'noh, age 16, describing whippings he witnessed in the Social Affairs "Youth Rehabilitation Center" in Choam Chao. The title of the HRW report is "Skin on the Cable."

More than 2,300 people were detained in Cambodia's 11 drug detention centers in 2008. That is 40% more than in 2007.

"The government of Cambodia must stop the torture occurring in these centers," said Amon. "Drug dependency can be addressed through expanded voluntary, community-based, outpatient treatment that respects human rights and is consistent with international standards."

Cambodian officials from the National Authority for Combating Drugs, the Interior Ministry, the National Police, and the Social Welfare Ministry all declined to comment when queried by the Associated Press. But Cambodian Brig. Gen. Roth Srieng, commander of the military police in Banteay Meanchy province, denied torture at his center, while adding that some detainees were forced to stand in the sun or "walk like monkeys" as punishment for trying to escape.

Children as young as 10, prostitutes, beggars, the homeless, and the mentally ill are frequently detained and taken to the drug detention centers, the report found. About one-quarter of those detained were minors. Most were not told why they were being detained. The report also said police sometimes demanded sexual favors or money for release and told some detainees they would not be beaten or could leave early if they donated blood.

The report relied on testimony from 74 people, most of them drug users, who had been detained between February and July 2009.

Cambodian drug centres deny abuse

January 27, 2010
ABC Radio Australia

Operators of drug rehabilitation centres in Cambodia have denied accusations patients are subjected to "sadistic violence". Human Rights Watch claims people are being held in the centres against their will, where they are subjected to torture, rape and humiliation. The organisation is calling for Cambodia authorities to shut down controversial facilities .

Presenter: Stephanie March
Speakers: Joe Amon, director, Health and Human Rights Commission, Human Rights Watch; Nean Sokhim, director, My Chance Drug Detention and Rehabilitation Centre, Phnom Penh

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

MARCH: The report by Human Rights Watch says 2,000 people are being held in so-called "drug rehabilitation centres" across Cambodia. Joe Amon is the director of the Health and Human rights commission for the organisation.

AMON: There were reports of beatings, being shocked with electric batons. There were cases where people would describe very specifically how staff and guards would wind together electrical cables together and whip inmates with them. But we also heard about rapes, we heard about people being shackled for long periods of time and being forced to stand in the sun.

MARCH: The report says many of the detainees are picked up by police and military in an effort to get drug users, sex workers and beggars off the street. Others are sent by their families who pay the authorities to treat and rehabilitate the patients. But Mr Amon says it's not only drug users who end up in the facilities.

AMON: Most of them were at some point drug users - not all of them were drug addicted or drug dependant. There were also children in there, adults who hadn't used drugs but got caught up in street sweeps. And also really quite disturbingly individuals with mental illness

MARCH: Government statistics show between 2007 and 2008, there was a 40% increase in the number of people in the the centres. Mr Amon says the centres are an easy way for authorities to keep so-called undesirables off the street.

AMON: And the other is profit. You know family members that are paying to have individuals picked up and put in these centres. You know that money is against Cambodian law, by law it says drug dependency treatment should be free. And that money is going directly into the pocket of the people running the centres.

MARCH: Nean Sokhim is the director of the civilian-run "My Chance" drug rehabilitation centre in Phnom Penh. He says patients are treated well, receive three meals a day and have job training opportunities.

SOKHIM: In my centre is no murder happen, no problem eh.

MARCH: Is there any violence towards the people in your centre from the guards?

SOKHIM: No, never.

MARCH: The is a report that has come out from a human rights organisation that says people that are tortured and kept against their will. What do you say about this report?

SOKHIM: No, no never happen like this. But the Human Rights Watch always say, always advise bad about the drug rehab centre in Cambodia. I don't know why because in my centre I always try to do everything better and better.

He says some detainees have tried to run away in the past.

SOKHIM: We have some, but all of them because we (inaudible) them and we can drug them and we forbid them to do the work at the outside of the after they can escape.

MARCH: So if someone tries to run away you give them drugs so they can't escape?

SOKHIM: Yeah, yeah yeah.

MARCH: Human Rights Watch says there are at least 11 drug centres operating in Cambodia. Some are run by the police and military while others are operated by civilians. Mr Sokhim says while there is no abuse at his centre he can't vouch for those run by the security forces.

SOKHIM: For other centre, they can violence at the centre governed by the police, governed by the military police. But in my centre is civil governed.

MARCH: Human Rights Watch is calling for all the drug rehab centres to be closed down and investigated for rights abuse. Joe Amon from the organisation says detention centres are the wrong way to tackle drug abuse.

AMON: The World Health Organisation did an assessment and they said in their report that they estimated that it was close to 100 percent relapse for the people who have been in these centres.. It's just the wrong way to approach drug addiction. Drug addiction is a chronic relapsing condition. It's not helped by a period of military drills and forced exercise.

Mr Sokhim estimates 70 percent of the 2,500 people who have been in his centre since it opened in 2006 have successfully managed to conquer drug abuse.

Cambodian rehab centres torture drug users: rights group

Monday, January 25, 2010
AFP

PHNOM PENH — Detainees at Cambodian government-run drug rehabilitation centres suffer "sadistic violence" such as electric shocks, forced labour and rape, a human rights group said Monday.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on Cambodia to close at least 11 centres around the country where it said people are often arbitrarily sent without reasonable cause, suffer grave abuses and are denied access to a lawyer.

"Many detainees are subjected to sadistic violence, including being shocked with electric batons and whipped with twisted electrical wire," said a 93-page report from the group.

"Arduous physical exercises and labour are the mainstays of supposed drug 'treatment'," it added.

Rights groups have made allegations about abuse at Cambodia's drug rehabilitation centres and UN health officials have questioned their treatment methods in the past.

"Individuals in these centres are not being treated or rehabilitated, they are being illegally detained and often tortured," said Joseph Amon, director of the health and human rights division at HRW.

"These centres do not need to be revamped or modified; they need to be shut down."

HRW also alleged detainees were forced to have sex with staff and to donate blood, were fed rotten or insect-ridden food and chained while standing in the sun as physical punishment.

The centres, run by various branches of the Cambodian state including police and the ministry of social affairs, detained nearly 2,400 people in 2008, according to the report.

Detainees were arrested for drug use and vagrancy, but were also frequently rounded up in police sweeps of people considered "undesirable" in advance of national holidays or international meetings, it added.

Government data revealed that more than 500 of the detainees were aged under 18, HRW said, and one former 16-year-old detainee named M'noh described staff members using electrical wire for whippings.

"[A staff member] would use the cable to beat people... On each whip the person's skin would come off and stick on the cable," he said in the report.

Cambodia: Close Compulsory Drug Detention Centers

Respect Rights and Expand Voluntary, Community-Based Treatment

January 24, 2010
Human Rights Watch

This press release also available in: Khmer

"Individuals in these centers are not being treated or rehabilitated, they are being illegally detained and often tortured. These centers do not need to be revamped or modified; they need to be shut down." - Joseph Amon, director of the Health and Human Rights division at Human Rights Watch

People who use drugs in Cambodia are at risk of arbitrary detention in centers where they suffer torture, physical and sexual violence, and other forms of cruel punishment, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Detention centers, mandated to treat and ‘rehabilitate' drug users, instead subject them to electric shocks, beatings with electrical wire, forced labor, and harsh military drills.

In the 93-page report, "Skin on the Cable," Human Rights Watch documents detainees being beaten, raped, forced to donate blood, and subjected to painful physical punishments such as "rolling like a barrel" and being chained while standing in the sun. Human Rights Watch also reported that a large number of detainees told of receiving rotten or insect-ridden food and symptoms of diseases consistent with nutritional deficiencies.

"Individuals in these centers are not being treated or rehabilitated, they are being illegally detained and often tortured," said Joseph Amon, director of the Health and Human Rights division at Human Rights Watch. "These centers do not need to be revamped or modified; they need to be shut down."

According to the report, people are frequently arbitrarily arrested without a warrant or without reasonable cause, often on the request of a relative or as part of periodic police round-ups of people considered "undesirable." They are often lied to - or simply not informed - about the reasons of their arrest. They have no access to a lawyer during their period in police custody or during the subsequent period of detention in the centers.

Military drills, sweating while exercising, and laboring are the most common means used to "cure" drug dependence in these centers, which are operated by various government entities, including military police and civilian police forces. "Vocational training" activities which take place in some centers appear motivated by benefits to the center staff as opposed to detainees. The report highlighted the large number of children and individuals with mental illnesses also detained within the centers. Both groups, according to the report, were subject to similar physical abuses.
Human Rights Watch called on the Royal Cambodian Government to permanently close its drug detention centers and conduct a thorough investigation of acts of torture, ill treatment, arbitrary detention, and other abuses occurring in them. Torture and inhuman treatment are prohibited by both the government's international human rights obligations and the Constitution of Cambodia.

"The government of Cambodia must stop the torture occurring in these centers" said Amon. "Drug dependency can be addressed through expanded voluntary, community-based, outpatient treatment that respects human rights and is consistent with international standards."

Selected accounts from individuals interviewed for "Skin on the Cable":

"I think this is not a rehab center but a torturing center." - Kakada, former detainee

"[A staff member] would use the cable to beat people...On each whip the person's skin would come off and stick on the cable..." - M'noh, age 16, describing whippings he witnessed in the Social Affairs "Youth Rehabilitation Center" in Choam Chao

"[After arrest] the police search my body, they take my money, they also keep my drugs...They say, ‘If you don't have money, why don't you go for a walk with me?...[The police] drove me to a guest house.... How can you refuse to give him sex? You must do it. There were two officers. [I had sex with] each one time. After that they let me go home." - Minea, a woman in her mid 20's who uses drugs, explaining how she was raped by two police officers

"[Shortly after arrival] I was knocked out. Other inmates beat me....They just covered me with a blanket and beat me...They beat me in the face, my chest, my side. I don't know how long it lasted...The staff had ordered the inmates to beat me. The staff said, ‘The new chicken has arrived, let's pluck its feathers and eat it!'" - Duongchem, former detainee

Cambodia denies forcing drug users into 'experiment'

PHNOM PENH, Dec 22 (AFP) - Cambodian authorities on Tuesday denied a rights group's accusations that they forced drug addicts to participate in a "trial" of a herbal formula that is not registered in the country.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that since December 11, police have arrested 17 people from the streets and held them in a centre where they were given a course of the medication "with no indication of voluntary consent".

"Such a trial violates the rights of the forced participants and does not meet minimum scientific standards," HRW said of the course of the formula "Bong Sen", which took place on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

Rebecca Schleifer, health and human rights advocacy director at HRW, said the "perverse experiment" was only made possible "by arbitrary detention and compelled participation".

"The use of coercive tactics to put drug users on a wholly unknown and unproven ‘cure’ for drug dependency violates the most fundamental principles of medical ethics and human rights," the group said.

Authorities in Cambodia said "Bong Sen" was not registered in the country but denied the course was a "drug trial", saying it was a programme to train Cambodian doctors in treating addictions with the herbal substance.

Neak Yuthea, director of the legislation, education, and rehabilitation department of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, said ten Vietnamese doctors helped train the Cambodians, who had no experience using the formula.

Authorities in Vietnam, where he said "Bong Sen" has been used effectively, provided the medication for the programme.

Neak Yuthea said 21 drug users from the Phnom Penh streets took part in the ten-day programme before being discharged.

"We did not arrest or force them but we persuaded them to participate in the programme voluntarily," he said.

One drug user who participated also told local media that he volunteered to participate in the programme.

Christophe Peschoux, representative for the UN High Commission for Human rights in Phnom Penh, told AFP he filed a "request to meet the individuals tested in order to establish the facts".

Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia cooperate in drug control

08/12/2007
VNA (Hanoi)

VietNamNet Bridge – The 7th Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia Drug Control Officials’ Meeting opened in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on December 5 under the chairmanship of Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng.

The Vietnamese delegation to the meeting is headed by Public Security Minister Le The Tiem.

Participants reviewed their drug fighting cooperation between their border provinces and discussed the exchange of information and experiences in fighting cross-border drug crimes.

They worked out plan to assist each other in preventing the trading of narcotics and strengthen coordination to effectively prevent cross-border drug trafficking.

Cambodian Deputy PM Sar Kheng said that the three countries have obtained marked achievements in the fight against drug crimes. However, there remained problems that require relevant agencies of the three countries to strengthen cooperation to put this evil under control.

At the meeting, Vietnam agreed to help train anti-drug crime forces for Laos and Cambodia in 2008 and build a detoxification centre for Cambodia.

The three sides also agreed to cooperate to prevent the trade of sassafras oil, a precursor chemical for illegal drug (MDMA), from Cambodia to Vietnam and Laos.

Vietnam pledged continued cooperation with Laos and Cambodia within regional and world agreements on drug control.