Suy Sem's land-grabbing case - Op-Ed by Anonymous

Small victory for villagers

Villagers embroiled in a land dispute with the KDC company at their homes in Kampong Chhnang province in September last year. (Photo by Drek Stout)

Suy Sem (front row) sitting next to Chea Kheng, his wife

Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post

The Kampong Chhnang provincial court yesterday ordered the KDC company to produce proof of ownership for 105 land titles in the Kampong Tralach district, the subject of a land dispute that dates back to 2007.

Long Lun, attorney for 70-year-old Chat Batt from the Lorpeang village, who claims KDC unlawfully grabbed her land without payment, said yesterday he welcomed the court’s decision, which will force the company to prove their debated ownership of the land.

“The court also requested cadastral officials to file all relevant land measurements,” the attorney said.

In 2007, Lorpeang villagers claim that the KDC company, owned by Chea Kheng, wife of the Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy Suy Sem, took more than 500 hectares of their farmland with no payment or agreement. The company insists the land was purchased properly.

Complaint rejected in high-profile land case

Chea Kheng standing next to her husband Suy Sem, the minister of Industry, Mines and Energy

Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post

Villagers in Kampong Chhnang province who have been locked for years in a land dispute with a firm owned by the wife of a government minister said yesterday that the provincial court had rejected their attempt to file against the company.

The villagers say the firm is attempting to push them off their land illegally and that they first attempted to submit the complaint in 2009, though the complaint has not been processed as local officials turned down a request from the villagers to permit having their court fees waived.

Reach Seima, a representative for villagers in Kampong Chhnang’s Kampong Tralach district, Ta Chea commune, said villagers had sent a letter to the court earlier this month inquiring about the total court fee associated with their complaint.

Yesterday, however, he said he had received a call from Chhoun Sivin, director of the provincial court clerks, informing him that the complaint had been rejected because the villagers needed to file individual rather than joint complaints.

OZ denies allegations of bribery in Cambodia [-It smells like "CORRUPTION" here!]

Suy Sem, the minister of Industry, Mines and Energy and his wife

June 1, 2011
Colin Kruger
Business Day

OZ MINERALS and the Cambodian government have been forced to deny allegations of impropriety over reports that a transaction by OZ Minerals in 2009 led to hundreds of thousands of dollars being paid to the relatives of government officials.

The news comes as the US Securities and Exchange Commission continues its investigations into Cambodian bribery allegations involving BHP Billiton.

BHP has yet to confirm or deny that the investigations relate to a $US1 million ($936,000) payment to the Cambodian government in 2006 to secure bauxite leases.

The Cambodia Daily reported yesterday that OZ Minerals bought out Shin Ha, its partner in a goldmine, in 2009. More than $US1 million of the proceeds went to three women on the partner's board, who were reportedly closely related to officials in government departments, including the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (MIME).

The newspaper said the trio were appointed in 2006, just before Shin Ha concluded a joint venture agreement with Oxiana, headed by Owen Hegarty. The company was later named OZ Minerals after merging with Zinifex.

Asian NGOs condemn defamation suit on activist

Sam Chankea - Photo courtesy of ki-media.blogspot.com

27 February 2011
ALIRAN

More than two dozen Asian civil society groups have condemned the conviction of Sam Chankea, a Cambodian human rights defender, for the exercise of his right to freedom of expression.

We, the undersigned human rights NGOs, human rights defenders and women human rights defenders of Asia, deeply regret the conviction of Mr. Sam Chankea, provincial coordinator of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC).

Mr. Chankea is a human rights defender active in land rights issues in Kampong Chhnang province. He was charged with defamation under Article 305 of the New Penal Code by the KDC International Company, a development company allegedly owned by Lauk Chumteav Chea Kheng, the wife of the Minister of Mining and Energy in Cambodia. On 25 January 2011, the Kg. Chhnang Provincial Court ruled against Mr. Sam Chankea and ordered him to pay a 1 million Riel fine and an additional 3 million Riel in compensation. If he does not pay the 4 million Riel (approximately US$1,000), he faces imprisonment.

Mr. Sam Chankea was charged for defamation by the KDC International Company because of a statement he made during a radio interview on Radio Free Asia (RFA) on 26 December 2009. In this interview he expressed his opinion on an ongoing land case in Kampong Chhnang between 108 families and the KDC International Company. There is a pending case between the families of Kampong Chhang and the KDC International Company, but still, the KDC International Company sent in its machinery to undertake land levelling. Mr. Sam Chankea considered the activity of land levelling by the KDC Company as an unlawful act. He stated that “what the company has done is an act of violation since the court has yet to rule on the merits of the case. Therefore the company should suspend the activity and await the ruling on the merits of the case”.

Rights activist fined, the culprit gets away free: Justice-a-la-Hun Xen?

Sam Chankea, Adhoc’s provincial coordinator in Kampong Chhnang province (centre), speaks to reporters outside the provincial court earlier this month. (Photo by: Photo Supplied)

Suy Sem (L) and his wife Chea Kheng (R), the owner of KCD

Court Fines Rights Activist for ‘Defamation’

Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Tuesday, 25 January 2011

“The court did not have evidence.”

Kampong Chhang provincial court ordered a human rights worker to pay nearly $1,000 in damages and fines Tuesday, after defamation charges were brought against him by a powerful company.

Sam Chankea, a Kampong Chhnang coordinator for the rights group Adhoc, will pay $750 in damages to the KCD Company, which reportedly belongs to the wife of the Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy.

He was charged with defamation, a criminal charge, in May 2010, after giving an interview to Radio Free Asia on a land dispute between KCD and 64 families who said they were being pushed off nearly 150 hectares of land in Kampong Tralach district.

CCHR Press Release: Following the Conviction of Human Rights Activist, CCHR Calls for a Constitutional Review of the Crime of Defamation

Sam Chankea, Adhoc’s provincial coordinator in Kampong Chhnang province (centre), speaks to reporters outside the provincial court earlier this month. (Photo by: Photo Supplied)

Click on the article to zoom in

Hearing today in activist case [against the KDC company]

Sam Chankea, Adhoc’s provincial coordinator in Kampong Chhnang province (centre), speaks to reporters outside the provincial court earlier this month. (Photo by: Photo Supplied)

Suy Sem (L) and his wife Chea Kheng (R)

Tuesday, 25 January 2011
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

Kampong Chhnang provincial court is set to hand down a verdict today in a case against a local activist that rights groups have branded an attack on freedom of expression.

Sam Chankea, the Kampong Chhnang provincial coordinator for local rights group Adhoc, has been accused of defamation and disinformation by the development firm KDC International. KDC is owned by Chea Kheng, the wife of Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy Suy Sem.

The complaint against Sam Chankea stems from a December 2009 interview with Radio Free Asia in which he suggested that the clearance of disputed land in Kampong Tralach district by KDC may have been illegal.

Sam Chankea said yesterday that he was confident that the court did not have the evidence to convict him.

Cambodia: Judicial harassment against Mr. Sam Chankea

Suy Sem, the CPP minister of Mining and Energy, and Chea Kheng, his wife who is accused of harassing Sam Chankea

URGENT APPEAL - THE OBSERVATORY

KHM 001 / 0111 / OBS 002
Judicial Harassment
Cambodia
January 18, 2011

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 of the judicial harassment faced by Mr. Sam Chankea, Coordinator of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC) in Kampong Chhnang, a human rights defender active in land rights issues.

According to the information received, Mr. Sam Chankea will face trial today, January 18, 2011 before the Kg. Chhnang Provincial Court in Cambodia for allegedly defaming the work of KDC International Company, owned by Lauk Chumteav Chea Kheng, wife of Minister of Mining and Energy.

The complaint against Mr. Sam Chankea follows a radio interview broadcast on December 26, 2009 in which he expressed his opinion over a land case conflict opposing dozens of villagers and the KDC International company in Kampong Chhnang province. In this interview Mr. Sam Chankea stated that “what the company has done is an act of violation since the court has yet to rule on the merits of the case. Therefore the company should suspend the activity and await the ruling on the merits of the case”. He was subsequently quoted in Koh Santepheap newspaper on December 30, 2009.

KDC sues activist in land row

CPP Suy Sem (L) and his wife Chea Kheng (R)

Wednesday, 23 June 2010
May Titthara and Irwin Loy
The Phnom Penh Post

A COMPANY belonging to the wife of a government minister that is involved in a long-simmering land dispute in Kampong Chhnang province has filed a legal complaint accusing a local rights advocate of disinformation – another example, some observers say, of the courts being used to silence criticism in controversial land cases.

Sam Chankea, coordinator for the rights group Adhoc in Kampong Chhnang, said he is the target of a disinformation complaint filed in late May by KDC International Company, which is headed by Chea Kheng, the wife of Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy Suy Sem.

Sam Chankea said the complaint stems from a December 26, 2009, interview with Radio Free Asia, in which he suggested that the clearance of disputed land by the company might be against the law. “The reporter just asked me about my point of view related to the company clearing villagers’ land. I said that if this is a case of clearing land belonging to villagers, it is illegal,” he said.

In the complaint, the company denies clearing disputed land, though Sam Chankea said villagers have insisted otherwise. Sam Chankea said he suspected the complaint was an attempt to intimidate him, because he had recently urged the provincial court to investigate villagers’ claims that they had been victims of a fraudulent land deal.

The company “filed a complaint against me just to threaten me to stop working on this case”, he said. “But I am not worried about this because we are working on human rights.”

KDC representative Thai Hy confirmed that a complaint had been filed against Sam Chankea on May 25, but declined to discuss the allegations at length.

Provincial court prosecutor Penh Vibol also declined to discuss them beyond saying that he had asked police to launch an investigation.

The dispute originally involved 108 families who say they have lived for years on the land in Ta Ches commune’s Lorpeang village. The company says that it bought the land in 1996.

In 2007, the company asserted its ownership of roughly 145 hectares of disputed land, saying it had struck a deal with 105 of the families. Rights groups, however, say 64 holdout families never agreed to sign over their property.

If the disinformation claim proceeds to court, it will mark at least the sixth time KDC International Company has asked the legal system to wade into the dispute, Sam Chankea said.

Since 2002, the company has filed complaints against villagers five times, he said, including a case last year in which the village chief was convicted of forging residents’ thumbprints on a complaint letter detailing claims that villagers had never sold their land to KDC.

‘Criminalisation’ of advocacy

Rights groups say there has been a recent surge in the number of legal cases brought against community groups and advocates involved in land disputes, accusing authorities and well-connected officials of becoming increasingly fond of “intimidation” tactics.

According to Adhoc, at least 235 “human rights defenders” – a term that refers to individual protesters, community representatives or representatives of protesters – faced legal scrutiny in 2009.

Of these, 58 were incarcerated as of January this year, while 88 were on the run.

“Based on these figures, intimidation against human rights defenders in 2009 rose up noticeably, compared to 164 cases in 2008,” Adhoc’s Human Rights Situation report for last year states.

Whereas human rights advocates might once have been quietly accused of “inciting protests”, they are now much more likely to be charged with actual criminal offences, the report states.

“Intimidation is a way to psychologically frighten human rights activists and human rights workers in Cambodia so they will not be able to fulfill their missions....” the report concludes.

“In return, it will force the victims to accept the resolution offered by local authorities who collude with the powerful at the expense of the powerless.”

Yeng Virak, executive director of the Community Legal Education Centre, said there has been an alarming increase in the “criminalisation” of land-dispute cases.

“It means [the courts] are not resolving the problem. They just make the problem worse,” he said.

“If you’re talking about community representatives, it is like they have been victimised twice. Their land is taken away, and at the same time they face criminal charges.”

The Cambodia Daily threatened with disinformation lawsuit for reporting the minister’s wife as being the minister’s wife: Hun Xen's Circus Maximus

Suy Sem is the husband of Chea Kheng, the owner of KDC international which is involved in land dispute with villagers in Kampong Chhnang (Photo: CPP)

Wednesday 16 September 2009
KI-Media

The Cambodia Daily reported in today’s edition that a lawyer for Chea Kheng, the wife of the CPP minister of Industry, Mines and Energy Suy Sem, issued a warning saying that mentioning Chea Kheng marital relationship with Suy Sem is grounds for “criminal charge for spreading disinformation.”

The warning was issued by lawyer Phat Pouv Seang to a reporter for The Cambodia Daily. Chea Kheng is the owner of KDC International, a company involved in land dispute with villagers in Kampong Chhnang province. In fact, during the phone call warning, Phat Pouv Seang did confirm that Chea Kheng is indeed Suy Sem’s wife, but the lawyer indicated that such information cannot be published in newspaper reports about land dispute issue. The lawyer also suggested that The Cambodia Daily issues a correction to its article.

According to Naly Pilorge of the Licadho’s human rights group, KDC is involved in land disputes with 108 villagers in Ta Ches commune, Kampong Tralach district, Kampong Chhnang province. Some of the villagers have agreed to sell their lands to KDC, but others did not. Nevertheless, KDC still claims the ownership of the entire area. This situation resulted in the land dispute.

The Cambodia Daily quoted Khieu Kanharith, the CPP minister of Information, as saying: “We can sue for disinformation when we know it is not true.”

Phat Pouv Sean is also defending Ieng Thirith, the wife of Ieng Sary, the former KR minister of Foreign Affairs. We were wondering whether revealing the fact that Ieng Thirith is Ieng Sary’s wife will earn us a disinformation lawsuit also?