Cambodia – Court summons issued to trade union leader and human rights defender Mr Rong Chhun

Photo: The Phnom Penh Post

5 September 2012
Source: CCHR

Cambodia – Court summons issued to trade union leader and human rights defender Mr Rong Chhun

On 29 August 2012, human rights defender Mr Rong Chhun received a summons to appear at Kandal Provincial Court on 11 September for questioning in relation to criminal allegations made against him. Rong Chhun is President of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions and a prominent labour rights advocate.

The summons issued to Rong Chhun relates to a complaint made by Mr Jack Liu, Director-General of Tai Yang Enterprises, alleging that the trade union leader incited Tai Yang Enterprises employees to protest illegally and also accusing him of defamation. It is reported that Mr Wu Ming Huor, a factory manager for Tai Yang Enterprises, also accused the human rights defender of destroying the company's business, claiming that several large international customers have drastically reduced their orders as a result of a strike at Tai Yang Enterprises factories.

The complaint against Rong Chhun relates to protests against the reported refusal of Tai Yang Enterprises to pay bonuses provided for under national labour law. These protests began on 25 June and over 3,000 workers have taken part in a number of peaceful demonstrations. It is believed that the allegation of defamation against Rong Chhun may be related to comments he made about the changing of the name of the company. During the protests he reportedly said that Tai Yang Enterprises had changed its name in order to avoid paying seniority bonuses to staff and taxes to the state.

Authorities attempted to arrest Rong Chhun on several occasions during the protests. However, the striking workers surrounded him on each occasion in order to peacefully prevent his arrest.

Front Line Defenders believes that the summons received by Rong Chhun is directly related to his peaceful and legitimate activities in the defence of human rights, particularly his attempts to improve working conditions in Cambodia, and is concerned that this may be an illegitimate attempt to intimidate the trade union leader and Tai Yang Enterprises employees into desisting from any further protest actions.

Front Line Defenders urges the authorities in Cambodia to:

1. Immediately cease the judicial harassment of human rights defender Rong Chhun, as Front Line Defenders believes that it is solely motivated by his human rights work, namely the leadership that he gives to workers demanding the realisation of their labour rights;
2. Guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders in Cambodia are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.

Joint Media Statement - Intimidation and Legal Threats Against Union Workers and Leaders Must Cease

Click on the statement in Khmer to zoom in

American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM), Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee (CHRAC), Community Legal Education Center (CLEC), Housing Rights Task Force (HRTF) and Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO)

Joint Media Statement

Intimidation and Legal Threats Against Union Workers and Leaders Must Cease

We, the undersigned organizations, are deeply disappointed with the government’s actions to intimidate and threaten workers and union members who have joined the four-day-garment strike from September 13-16, 2010.

The government’s response to this entirely legal – and long-declared – strike has included attacks on protesters, legal threats against organizers, and the court-sponsored retaliation against union members. This must stop immediately if the two sides are to reach an agreement during upcoming talks on September 27.

Thousands of workers from the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Unions (C-CAWDU), the National Independent Federation of Textile Unions of Cambodia (NIFTUC) and 13 other unions took part in a peaceful strike to demand an increase in the current wage to meet minimum living standards.

We deplore the violent incidents which took place during the days-long strike, including:

• The beating of a 28-year-old woman, who was seriously injured during a crackdown by a mixed group of armed military and civilian police at the Top World Factory and Kbal Koh Garment Factory in Kandal’s Kien Svay district;
• The physical assault, arrest and detention of Sok Sophea, a 29-year-old male worker and union secretary at the Kbal Koh Factory by Kien Svay district police.

On the fourth day, September 16, the Minister of Social Affairs, Veteran & Youth Rehabilitation, Ith Sam Heng, proposed a meeting between the government and union representatives to be held on September 27. Union leaders accepted this proposal and promptly called for workers to suspend the strike and go back to work.

Although the strike has been suspended, intimidation and threats from the government have not.

While the Minister Ith Sam Heng called for a dialogue, he and Minister of Labour & Vocational Training, Vong Sauth also urged leaders of the strike to be investigated and for authorities to crackdown on the ongoing strike. Starting September 15, the Phnom Penh court, Kandal court and Kampong Speu court started ordering for workers to get back to work within 24 hours.

Furthermore, we obtained copies of some of the court documents calling for workers who led the strike to be suspended from their work pending an investigation:

• Judge Kloth Pich ordered 22 union workers to be suspended from their work at the Sieng Woo factory in Kampong Speu province;
• Court President Judge In Van Vibol ordered 16 union workers to be suspended from their work at the Meng Tong Garment Factory Ltd. and Meng Yang Garment Factory & Vet Processing Ltd in Kandal province;
• Court President Judge In Van Vibol ordered 10 union workers to be suspended from their work at the Winner Knitting Factory in Kandal province
• Judge Sin Virak ordered 24 union workers to be suspended from their work at the River Rich Textile Ltd. Factory in Kandal province;
• Judge Sin Virak ordered 20 union workers to be suspended from their work at the Goldfame Enterprise (Intl) Nitters Limited Factory in Kandal province

The participating unions have also reported work suspension of their active members in at least 15 factories.

These actions are undisguised retributions, and are in violation of Article 12 of the Cambodian Labour Law, which prohibits discrimination against union members.

“The right to organize, the right to collective bargaining and the right to strike are guaranteed by Cambodia’s Constitution, the Labor Law, and ILO Conventions 87 and 98”, says CLEC Executive Director Yeng Virak. “The government must allow workers and unions to freely exercise these rights.”

“This misuse of the court to punish union activism is a blatant violation of the Labour Law”, says LICADHO Director Naly Pilorge. “Discriminatory suspension against union members must cease immediately.”

“The government seems to be engaging in scare tactics to increase their bargaining power on September 27”, says ACILS Country Director David Welsh “Fear seems to be their primary negotiating tactic. But threatening unions will do nothing to resolve the underlying issues. The workers’ demand for higher wages is about meeting minimum living standards. They’re not demanding Lexuses and luxury villas.”

We therefore call for:

• The courts to respect the rights of workers to exercise union activities, to not unjustly bring charges against union members who took part in and/or organized the legal strike, and to cease groundless investigations on strikes;
• The authorities from all levels to immediately cease interfering with union activities, including strikes;
• The government to prepare the ground for an honest and transparent dialogue with union representatives on September 27. If the government fails cease threatening and arresting union leaders, then the September 27 talks will essentially be rigged. Leaders will be unable to fulfill their duties out of fear of being arrested.

For more information, please contact:
ACILS Country Director, David Welsh, 077 222 020
CCHR Executive Director Ou Virak, 012 404 051
CCIM Director, Pa Nguon Teang, 012 598 066
CHRAC Chief of Secretariat, Suon Sareth, 092 344 357
CLEC Executive Director Yeng Virak, 012 801 235
LICADHO Director Naly Pilorge, 012 803 650

[Cambodian-American] Woman claims she was defamed, held against will

Monday, April 14, 2008
By PAUL KOEPP
The Jersey Journal STAFF WRITER (New Jersey. USA)

Sopharie Leang was born into a royal family in Cambodia, and her husband Song was an ambassador to Austria before the Khmer Rouge regime ravaged their families in the 1970s.

But she is traumatized by a more recent event, according to her lawyer.

A former teacher at School 11 in Jersey City, Leang is in a legal battle with school officials, saying she was harassed, slandered and held against her will in a bizarre incident six years ago.

Leang was counting books along with students and aides in her classroom on June 24, 2002 - her last day of a year of teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) at the Bergen Avenue school - when she was approached by a fellow ESL teacher, Vladimir Ashworth.

Leang alleged in a 2003 lawsuit that Ashworth, who she said sexually harassed her throughout the year, then fabricated a threat by Leang.

When she commented that, because of work on her doctorate degree, she was under stress that "could have killed some people," Ashworth asked whether Leang wanted to kill everyone in the room, according to the lawsuit.

After Ashworth reported the supposed threat, Principal Angela Bruno held Leang in a nurse's office for several hours against her will, Leang claimed.

"Why not just send her home?" her Jersey City attorney, Daniel Sexton, said in a phone interview. "She wants to clear her name."

Leang, who claimed she was also roughed up by police in the incident, was then taken to Christ Hospital for psychiatric evaluation and released later that night.

Claiming false imprisonment, defamation and wrongful termination, she sought punitive damages from Ashworth, Bruno and the Jersey City Board of Education, as well as from the Jersey City Police Department and Jersey City Medical Center, whose employees removed her from the school.

Although Superior Court Judge Frances Antonin threw out the lawsuit in 2005, a state appeals court slammed the dismissal in a ruling April 2, saying that Antonin did not justify her decision and should be removed from the case. The appeals court said portions of the lawsuit should go forward.

Leang has settled her claims against the JCPD.

In addition, the appeals court dismissed a sexual harassment claim against Ashworth, who had defended himself by saying he is gay.

A spokesman for the Board of Education, Gerard Crisonino, said that Ashworth resigned in 2005 and Bruno retired last year. He said he could not comment on pending litigation.

Sexton said the remaining claims could go to trial in May or June.

Cambodian and foreign students in Pune, India, harassed by police personnel at the Foreigners' Registration Office

Foreign students slam FRO

4 Sep 2007
TNN (India)

PUNE: Foreign students from various institutions affiliated to the University of Pune have complained of harassment, high-handedness and corruption by police personnel at the foreigners’ registration office (FRO) at the Pune police commissionerate.

A representation, signed by over 300 students, mostly from African, central and west Asian countries, has been made to the vice-chancellor and the International Students’ Centre (ISC), seeking redressal.

The issue also puts a question mark over the effectiveness of the single-window facilitation centre established last year at the ISC precisely for restricting the interface between foreign students and police, to the minimum.

Under the single-window initiative, FRO personnel visit the ISC once a week, from 10.30 am to 12.30 pm on Mondays, to collect pleas by foreign students regarding extension of visa, return of visa, residential permit and other verification issues. The students are supposed to get their pleas with due endorsements within 15 days of filing the application.

However, things aren’t working out that way as was evident from complaints raised by students, a sizeable number of them being girls, from countries like Kenya, Kyrgystan, Cambodia, Japan, Mauritius and Iran, during an interaction with reporters near the university main building on Monday evening.

The least we expect is that the police should stop behaving badly with us, said an Iranian girl student while narrating her experience of repeated visits to the FRO for visa extension.

Another girl, an Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) scholar from Cambodia engaged in post-graduate studies here, narrated her experience of frequenting between the ISC single-window centre and the Chatushrungi police station for the last five weeks to get her visa extension endorsed.