URGENT APPEAL - THE OBSERVATORY
KHM 002 / 0512 / OBS 047
Extrajudicial killing
Cambodia
May 3, 2012
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), requests your urgent intervention in the following situation in Cambodia.
Description of the situation:
The Observatory has been informed by the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) and the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR) of the extrajudicial killing of prominent environmental activist Mr. Chut Wutty, Founder of the National Resources Protection Group (NRPG), in Mondol Seima district, Koh Kong province.
According to the information received, on April 26, 2012, Mr. Chut Wutty drove two journalists, Ms. Phorn Bopha and Ms. Olesia Plokhii, from the Cambodia Daily, to the Cardamom Mountains in Koh Kong province to report on illegal logging. Mr. Wutty and the two journalists stopped near a dwelling and began taking pictures of the surrounding. As Mr. Wutty was taking photographs, he was approached by an unknown man who told him to stop taking pictures and to leave the area. When they walked back to Mr. Wutty’s car, they were accosted by two men, one of whom appeared to be a soldier, who told Mr. Wutty and the two journalists that they could not leave until they have spoken to his ‘boss’. The soldier did not reveal his identity nor that of his superior.
The soldier prevented Mr. Wutty from getting into his car. Soon after, three armed men dressed in military police uniform and military fatigues arrived on a motorcycle. The situation escalated as the men confiscated cameras from Mr. Wutty and the two journalists. Realising the risky situation they were in, Mr. Wutty tried to drive away but the engine of his car would not start. Soon after agreeing to hand over his own camera, Mr. Wutty finally managed to start the engine and called for the two journalists to get into his car, but the soldiers stood in front of the car to block it from moving. It is at the moment that Ms. Plokhii was getting into the car that gunshots were fired. Neither Ms. Plokhii nor Ms. Bopha, who was in the backseat in a phone conversation with her editor-in-chief when the gunshots were heard, saw who fired the shots.