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

Drug detention centers offer torture, not treatment: Human Rights Watch study

New York, July 25 (ANI): Hundreds of thousands of people identified as drug users in China and across Southeast Asia are held without due process in centers where they may be subjected to torture, and physical and sexual violence in the name of "treatment," Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released recently.

International donors and United Nations agencies have supported and funded drug detention centers that systematically deny people rights to effective HIV and drug dependency treatment, and have ignored forced labor and abuse.

The 23-page document, "Torture in the Name of Treatment: Human Rights Abuses in Vietnam, China, Cambodia, and Lao PDR," summarizes research with individuals who had been detained in Vietnam, China, Cambodia, and Lao PDR. More than 350,000 people identified as drug users are detained in the name of "treatment" in these countries for periods of up to five years. In many centers, drug users are held alongside homeless people, people with psychosocial disabilities, and street children, and are forced to perform military drills, chant slogans, and work as "therapy."

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.

Ongoing Torture Goes Unpunished: Rights Workers

Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Tuesday, 09 November 2010

“Torture is not only explained through physical oppression, but also the oppression of mental thinking.”

While torture continues for suspects in the custody of police and other security officials, leading rights workers say it rarely goes punished. And it can come in different forms.

“Torture is not only explained through physical oppression, but also the oppression of mental thinking,” said Sok Sam Oeun, executive director of the Cambodian Defenders Project.

Threats and other mental pressure used to coerce confessions are also an ongoing problem, he said, as a guest on “Hello VOA” Monday.

The Defenders Project and other groups say Cambodia's record of torture in the penal system should be examined by the UN Committee Against Torture, which reviews Cambodia's commitments to an anti-torture agreement in Geneva on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the country still lacks the will or means to charge perpetrators, he said. “There have been no punishments made by the courts.”

“Since Cambodia singed the convention against torture in 1992, there have been a few people responsible for torture who have been punished,” Chan Saveth, chief investigator for the rights group Adhoc, said on “Hello VOA.” “And victims don't have the courage to file a lawsuit.”

Callers expressed concern over torture in post-conflict Cambodia, as well as land grabs and violence against human rights workers. One caller from Kampong Cham asked whether the government knew about abuses, including the reportedly forced confessions of Born Samnang and Sok Samoeun, two men who are currently free on bail—and widely considered innocent—on charges they killed labor leader Chea Vichea in 2004.

“They were tortured and forced to confess,” Chan Saveth said. “And they have not totally been acquitted.”

Groups Denounce Torture Ahead of UN Hearing

The most common forms including beating, crushed limbs, electric shock and threats of family and friends, especially for suspects in police custody, the rights committee said. (Photo: AP)

Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Monday, 08 November 2010

“We have no hope they will say good things from Cambodia.” - CPP General Khieu Sopheak

Human rights groups on Monday denounced the continued abuse of prisoners inside Cambodia’s penal system, on the eve of a UN torture committee hearing on the country.

Cambodia is a signatory of the UN convention against torture, and it will face its second hearing with the UN Committee Against Torture on Tuesday.

But the practice is still a concern, the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, a coalition of rights and development groups, said in a statement Monday.

The rights group Licadho counted 118 instances of torture in detention in 2009 and another 101 cases in 2010 so far.

The most common forms including beating, crushed limbs, electric shock and threats of family and friends, especially for suspects in police custody, the rights committee said.

Such treatments led to prison sentences between seven and 10 years, said Chan Saveth, an investigator with the rights group Adhoc.

Meanwhile, sentences are handed out without much information from the courts, said Kong Kim Suon, a lawyer for the Cambodian Defenders Project.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said the government was committed to preventing torture, saying rights groups were only “making noise” ahead of the UN hearing.

“We have no hope they will say good things from Cambodia,” he said of the statement.

Suon Sareth, secretary-general of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, whose members have sent their own report to the UN torture committee, said the government had made “some” progress on preventing torture.

But leaders have stopped short of making it a national priority, he said.

In Cambodia, brush back against street sweeps

This government-run rehabilitation center just outside Cambodia's capital city, Phnom Penh, was used to detain people rounded up from the street. It was closed in 2008 after rights groups and the U.N. raised concerns about the legality of holding people there and the quality of the facilities. (Licadho)

Human Rights Watch condemns Cambodia's campaign to clear the capital of its poor and homeless.

March 4, 2010
By Brendan Brady
Special to GlobalPost

Skyscrapers and condos are fast rising in Phnom Penh but rights groups here say real development will remain illusory as long as the government sweeps the country’s social problems under the rug.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — At night in Cambodia’s capital, parks once populated by sex workers fell silent. Streets and abandoned lots in the center of Phnom Penh where drug addicts and homeless slept lay empty. The city’s underbelly had been washed away.

Then reports of abuse emerged. Sex workers said police had detained them for weeks, taking the cash they had on hand and raping them — even those who protested by saying they had HIV. There were accounts of government facilities where drug users, street kids and the mentally ill were beaten and starved. Rights workers reported a security crisis for the groups they served, and a facility was shut down after they and the U.N. raised concerns.

That was more than a year ago and the uproar has since eased. Now, a new report has put the government’s street sweep campaign front and center again.

In a report released Jan. 25, Human Rights Watch describes a climate of “sadistic violence” in the government’s drug rehabilitation centers. Drug users face beatings and arduous forced labor, while being deprived of effective treatment for their addiction, the watchdog group says.

“He had three kinds of cable … he would ask you which one you prefer. On each whip the skin would come off and stick to the cable,” the report quotes a 16-year-old identified as M’noh as saying.

In its own study, the World Health Organization found a nearly 100 percent relapse rate in people coming out of the government’s drug rehabilitation facilities. “This is a common approach globally,” says Graham Shaw, a technical adviser for the World Health Organization in Cambodia. “It’s cheap and easy and it allows the government to show the public that it’s responding to drug dependence problems amongst the population, but it doesn’t provide a solution.”

The facilities are presided over by a mix of authorities, including local government offices, the Social Affairs Ministry as well as civilian and military police. Human Rights Watch says officials running the rehabilitation centers profited by renting out detainees as laborers and by selling blood they forced detainees to donate. More than 2,000 people were detained in 11 of these facilities throughout the country in 2008, the vast majority involuntarily, according to the group.

“The real motivations for Cambodia’s drug detention centers appear to be a combination of social control, punishment for perceived moral failure of drug use and profit,” says the report.

The report sheds light on the government’s controversial use of holding centers for drug users, homeless people, sex workers and beggars — who are often rounded up before national holidays and visits by foreign dignitaries, when the capital is on display. Rights groups have long called for the closure of such facilities, citing frequent allegations of violence and forced detention, and questioned the effectiveness of the treatment programs they supposedly offer.

The issue came into the spotlight in 2008, after the government launched a contentious law that outlawed prostitution. In the months following the law's implementation, police carried out a series of raids on brothels and street-based prostitution that rights groups said gave police free rein to rape and rob sex workers they detained. They say the law has done little more than drive prostitution deeper underground, making sex workers more vulnerable to trafficking and pushing them further away from the public health groups that have been instrumental in curbing the country's HIV/AIDS rates.

“This sort of ‘cleaning’ the streets of undesirable people has been happening for a long time, but there’s been more attention towards it recently,” said Mathieu Pellerin, who works with the local rights group Licadho.

According to Pellerin, when a Licadho outreach team was able to gain access to one of the government’s main poorhouses in 2008, they found an elderly women in her dying moments being left untreated and a young mother nine months pregnant who would have given birth in her cell without any assistance had they not been able to convince the facility to release her.

The government has denied reports of violence and mistreatment in its facilities. “There’s no violence, rape, nothing like that” in the drug centers, said Neak Yuthea, who is head of the government’s rehabilitation program. “Drug addiction is a new problem in Cambodia. This is good for them. … Maybe Human Rights Watch wants to see the drug users living on the street.”

The government says most drug users are interned at the request of their families and that many homeless volunteer to live temporarily in the centers because they are given food, a roof over their heads, and, in some cases, basic vocational training. It has also cited a lack of resources in some cases to explain substandard facilities.

Licadho’s director, Naly Pilorge, says, however, it isn’t simply a matter of underperforming social welfare. “You have people who have done nothing wrong who are detained like criminals,” she said. “It could be a construction worker who doesn’t look like he belongs on the street where he is … or a poor-looking kid who is just walking along the street.”

Skyscrapers and condos are fast rising in Phnom Penh but rights groups here say real development will remain illusory as long as the government sweeps the country’s social problems under the rug.

Prison Abuse ‘Covered Up’: Monitor

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington
26 June 2009

The abuse of inmates and suspects is difficult to investigate and report because police and other penal officers cover it up, a rights monitor said Thursday.

“Most cases happen in police posts and prisons, and [abuse] is covered up by police and prison officials,” said Ny Charya, a leading investigator for the rights group Adhoc, as guest on “Hello VOA” in Phnom Penh.

Some guards allow long-term prisoners to attack newcomers, in order to frighten them upon admittance, he said, adding that any form of physical or psychological torture committed by a public official was against international conventions signed by Cambodia.

Lt. Gen. Khieu Sopheak, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, said there were no orders for police to abuse detainees, which is illegal.

“If a case were true, there would be legal action against those who committed [the act],” he said.

Families of detainees can file charges, he said.

Ny Charya said abuse sometimes occurred because police needed to complete a case, but he noted such acts were counterproductive and unjust. Confessions under duress can be recanted, and police must know how to properly question suspects.

The abuse of inmates and suspects is difficult to investigate and report because police and other penal officers cover it up, a rights monitor said Thursday.

Group Calls for Safeguards for Prisoners

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
24 June 2009

The Asian Human Rights Commission on Wednesday pushed the government to set up an independent body to prevent the torture of prison inmates and suspects in police custody across the country.

“In the first five months of 2009, there were reportedly five deaths in police custody against three for the whole of 2008,” the Hong Kong-based rights group said in a statement. “The families of the dead and human rights monitors have suspected torture as the cause of death.”

Authorities dismissed the deaths as suicides, but no investigations were ordered and medical personnel were reluctant to counter police reports, the group said, claiming Cambodia had failed to honor its obligations to a UN convention against torture, which it ratified in 2007.

Nouth Sa An, secretary of state for the Ministry of Interior, told VOA Khmer the government was preparing a working group to cooperate with the Asian Human Rights Commission to prevent torture and killings of prisoners.

“We respect human rights,” he said. “A person who is an inmate in prison or in custody of the police is also a human.”

However, the Rights Commission said the ministry had failed “for many years” to permit local rights groups access to police stations, despite granting access to prisons.

The commission noted, however, that in surveys of 18 prisons across the country, alleged torture cases had declined. Allegations at police stations fell from 450 in 1999 to 124 in 2007 and 78 in 2008.

Hang Roraken, prosecutor-general for the Court of Appeals, said the judicial system had worked closely with the Asian Human Rights Commission over the past six months to prevent mistreatment of prisoners.

“I have always advised the prosecutors, judicial police and prison guards to respect the UN convention against torture, not to abuse individual rights,” he said. “In Cambodia, there is no torture in prisons when police detain suspects.”

Cambodia has no anti-torture law, but torture is criminalized and punishable under a new penal code recently approved for National Assembly consideration.

The Government Must Do More To Combat Torture: AHRC

Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Press Release: Asian Human Rights Commission

Cambodia: The Government Must Do More To Combat Torture

Between 1975 and 1979 the Cambodian people suffered one of the world’s most brutal regimes, the Khmer Rouge, which used, among things, torture as a means to assert its rule. In its notorious Tuol Sleng Torture Centre in Phnom Penh, some 16,000 Cambodians died horribly by the systematic use of torture by the Khmer Rouge to extract confessions during the four years of its reign. Now, the man who ran that centre, Kaing Guek Eav alias “Duch”, is being tried by the UN-assisted Khmer Rouge tribunal for torture and other crimes.

Due to this experience, in 1992, upon the end of the war that had followed the ousting of the Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodia did not hesitate to adhere to the UN Convention against Torture (UNCAT) and has since taken measures to combat torture. Surveys among a sample of inmates conducted by a human rights NGO, LICADHO, in 18 different prisons across the country have shown a decline of alleged torture cases, from 450 in police custody and 49 in prison in 1999, to 124 and 78 respectively among the 2,556 inmates interviewed in 2007, and to 78 and 7, respectively among 1,983 inmates interviewed in 2008.

In order to show its commitment, Cambodia ratified the Optional Protocol to this convention or OPCAT in 2007. Unfortunately the Cambodian government has failed to honour its obligations under this Protocol and it has not created, within the OPCAT-prescribed one year period, an independent National Preventive Mechanism to visit places of detention; it has simply pledged to do so by the end of 2010.

For many years the Ministry of Interior has authorized NGOs access to prisons but not to police stations, especially to LICADHO, to provide medical treatment and conduct surveys on the treatment of inmates. Recently, it authorized, on a long term basis, the field Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to conduct visits to prisons, which is going to contribute to the prevention of torture on inmates and the improvement of prison conditions and the treatment of inmates.

For his part, in 2009, the Prosecutor General of the Court of Appeal, with whom the Code of Criminal Procedure enacted in 2007 entrusts the task of inspection prisons and police stations, started a programme of inspection of all prisons and major police stations across the country. One purpose of this programme is to prevent torture in those places of detention. The Court of Koh Kong province has lately convicted a police officer for torture.

The Ministry of Interior and the Prosecutor General’s Office are supporting training for prosecutors, police officers and prison personnel to get them to comply with UNCAT and OPCAT, prevent and combat torture and all forms of ill-treatment in all places of detention, and cooperate with the future National Preventive Mechanism.

Cambodia has no anti-torture law, but torture is criminalized and punishment for it is provided for in the final draft Penal Code which the government is reportedly going to approve and send to the Parliament for adoption in the near future.

However, torture, though in decline, is still being used, mainly to extract confessions. The surveys conducted so far may not reflect the extent of its use when inmates, interviewed in the presence of prison guards, are inhibited by fear of reprisals to tell about the torture they or their fellow inmates have been subjected to. In the first five months of 2009, there were reportedly five deaths in police custody against three for the whole of 2008. The families of the dead and human rights monitors have suspected torture as the cause of death. The concerned authorities have denied the use of torture and usually claimed suicide. But no independent investigation into those deaths has been ordered, and medical personnel called upon to certify such deaths in police custody are known to be reluctant to contradict what the police have said.

For their part, prosecutors before whom the police bring suspects for charging are themselves inhibited to inquire whether those suspects have been subjected to any torture. They do not want to order new investigations into the alleged crime. Nor do they want to investigate torture should they suspect it as they do not want to create any friction with the perpetrator who might be none other than the police themselves. For the same reasons they are not willing to conduct any prompt investigations into torture complaints as called for under the UNCAT.

The Cambodian government must now make greater efforts to honour its obligations under the UNCAT and OPCAT and its commitment to combat torture and protect people’s absolute right to freedom from it more effectively. It should seek expertise and advice from the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture to create a National Preventive Mechanism that meets the OPCAT requirements without any further delay. It should speed up the enactment of the Penal Code under which torture is criminalised.

Considering that the judiciary has a constitutional duty to protect human rights, the Prosecutor General of the Appeal Court should also do more to protect this absolute right. He should create within his office a torture complaint unit to receive complaints from victims or their families. Upon receiving a complaint, he should order the prosecutor under whose jurisdiction the incident has occurred to conduct a prompt investigation, and to report to him any legal action he or she has taken. The prosecutor should also receive such complaints and likewise conduct prompt investigation.

The prosecutor should exercise the power conferred upon them by the Code of Criminal Procedure to inspect prisons and police stations under his or her jurisdiction. Like the Prosecutor General, he or she should be well equipped with adequate expertise, including visit methodology, to avoid negative repercussion of the inspection on persons detained in police custody or in prison such as reprisals against them for telling the truth.

The Prosecutor General should issue a directive to all prosecutors to check whether suspects brought before them bear any physical or mental sign they have been tortured before laying any charge against them. If there is any such sign, they should conduct prompt investigation and take legal action against the perpetrators.

The current Code of Criminal Procedure has not stipulated this examination for sign of torture and legal action by the prosecutor. It should be amended forthwith to stipulate such examination and action not only by the prosecutor but also by the investigating judge and the trial judge. This amendment should also affirm the suspect’s right to legal counsel, medical treatment and contact with his or her family upon his or her arrest. He or she should be promptly informed of this right. His or her counsel should be present during all police interrogation. Currently, the suspect cannot have access to legal council until 24 hours after the arrest and then only for 30 minutes. As to medical treatment and contact with the family, he or she is very much subject to the discretionary decision of the prosecutor and the custody officer.
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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

Cambodia to inspect its detention centers

February 04, 2009
By Lao Mong Hay
UPI Asia.com

Column: Rule by Fear

Hong Kong, China — A recent survey shows that over a quarter of the Cambodian population had been subject to torture in the 1970s under the Khmer Rouge regime. In the early 1990s Cambodia set out to prevent the repeat of this experience and adhere to the U.N. Convention against Torture and, in 2007, to the Optional Protocol to this convention or OPCAT.

However, Cambodia failed to honor its obligations under OPCAT and has been unable to create a national preventive mechanism within 12 months following its ratification of the protocol. The mechanism's main mandate is to visit places of detention and make recommendations to the relevant authorities to ensure respect for the fundamental rights of persons detained in those places.

Now, in a recent workshop in Phnom Penh on the implantation of OPCAT, the Cambodian government has pledged to put it in place in the next two years. In the same workshop, the prosecutor general of the Court of Appeal announced that he would soon exercise his power of inspection of prisons and police stations as conferred upon him and prosecutors of the Court of First Instance by a recently enacted code of criminal procedure. One of the aims of this inspection is to prevent torture or ill treatment of detainees.

Torture and other ill treatment are still used by the police to extract confessions not only to the alleged crime for which a suspect has been arrested but also to his previous crimes. Courts prefer to ignore claims of such treatment by accused persons to avoid the trouble of rejecting their statement to the police, ordering new investigations, and prosecuting the police officer(s) allegedly involved in the act.

Regarding the inspection of places of detention, it is not yet known what kind of methodology the prosecutor general will use to ascertain whether torture or other ill treatment is involved. Nor is it certain whether he will get full cooperation from the concerned officers although he has full disciplinary power over them. Besides, it is difficult to ensure that suspects detained in police cells or inmates in prisons who come forth with allegations of such acts will not suffer any retaliation after he departs following the inspection.

There are also serious doubts about his ability and that of prosecutors of the Court of First Instance to conduct thorough inspections of all police stations and prisons across the country as there are not many prosecutors and not all are allocated adequate resources for their prosecution task, let alone a particular inspection of a detention center.

However, these difficulties are a challenge to them in discharging their constitutional duties as members of the judiciary to protect the rights of Cambodians deprived of their liberty and held in detention centers.

Nevertheless, such inspections of places of detention should be welcomed and judicial officers should be unreservedly supported when exercising their authority. They should be allocated adequate resources for the task and given technical assistance to develop methodologies and other measures to ensure effective inspections to prevent torture and ill treatment of detainees. This will ensure respect for their fundamental rights.

Parallel to this inspection, the prosecutor general should propose amendments to the code of criminal procedure where suspects are informed of their right to legal advice, right to medical treatment and the right to inform family members of their detention, immediately after their arrest, which the present code fails to provide.

He should also issue instructions to all prosecutors of the Court of First Instance to be proactive in detecting torture or ill treatment when police bring suspects to be formally charged. These prosecutors should examine the body and the state of mind of suspects to detect torture, especially within the first 72 hours of their arrest. If they find any signs of ill treatment, they should promptly call for a medical examination, order a prompt investigation and prosecute the perpetrators.
--
(Lao Mong Hay is a senior researcher at the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong. He was previously director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto in 2003. In 1997, he received an award from Human Rights Watch and the Nansen Medal in 2000 from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.)

Cambodia considers forming body to implement UN Convention Against Torture

28.01.09
Trend News

The Cambodian government is considering to meet the UN requirement for establishing an official organization to implement the UN Convention Against Torture, national media said on Wednesday.

The Cambodian Ministry of Interior and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) had studied the detail of this requirement last week during a special workshop, said English-language newspaper the Phnom Penh Post.

"We believe that torture is still a common crime... occurring in prisons against those accused of doing something wrong," said Jason Barber, consultant to rights group Licadho, while commenting on the proposed initiative, Xinhua reported.

The proposed sub-decree would create a temporary body pending the establishment of a National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) that is consistent with UN's Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT), a legislative process that UN and government officials expect to take up 2 years, said the paper.

Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said that the proposed NPM could help reduce instances of torture in the country, but only if it is independent and respects the spirit of existing international agreements.

"I think that NPM will improve the investigation process where it is respected," he added.

Cambodia Lauded for Anti-Torture Progress [-The problem is: Can anyone trust the Hun Sen gov't promise?]

By Taing Sarada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
10 October 2008

Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program

The Asian Human Rights Commission applauded initiatives by the Ministry of Interior to curtail the abuse of prisoners following their arrests, after Cambodian officials attended a meeting on the Optional Protocol Against Torture in Manila last month.

The Interior Ministry’s department of prisons was making progress in preventing the abuse of prisoners, said Lao Monghay, a senior researcher for the Commission, especially with a program to train prisoners in skills they can use after their release.

Cambodia became a signatory to the anti-torture protocol in 2007, requiring the government to establish an independent system to prevent torture.

Lao Monghay said that while the courts and Interior Ministry were making strides towards curbing the practice, the government should nominate several individuals to work on a UN OPAT subcommittee in Geneva.

Sieng Lapress, undersecretary of state for the Interior Ministry, told VOA Khmer that Cambodia was working to establish a “mechanism” to prevent torture, “but we need to have a talk with our international partners, who want the mechanism to be independent.”

Cambodian prisoners have come under fire in recent months for the deaths of inmates in at least two prisons.

Pol Pot death camp inmate wants truth, not revenge

Wed Aug 1, 2007
By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - For Chum Manh, one of only a handful of Cambodians to have survived the Khmer Rouge's most notorious interrogation camp, seeing his former tormentor caged on charges of crimes against humanity is not enough.

The 77 year-old wants to confront Duch, the head of Phnom Penh's Tuol Sleng, or S-21, detention centre, and find out what drove him to torture and then butcher so many thousands of his fellow countrymen under Pol Pot's "Year Zero" revolution.

"As a Buddhist, I don't want to avenge violence with more violence," said Chum Manh, who lost his wife and baby during the ultra-Maoist movement's 1975-79 reign of terror.

"But I do want to hear a public apology for what he did," he told Reuters. "He was the one who ordered the prison guards to torture us. I want to challenge him at his trial and ask him why he treated us so badly in the prison."

Duch, also known as Kang Kek Ieu, was charged formally on Tuesday with crimes against humanity and detained by a joint Cambodian-United Nations tribunal investigating the atrocities of the "Killing Fields" and their 1.7 million victims.

A former schoolteacher and born-again Christian, the 65-year-old Duch was the first of Pol Pot's henchmen to appear before the tribunal set up to prosecute "those most responsible" for one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century.

More than 14,000 people are known to have passed through the barbed-wire gates of Tuol Sleng, the Phnom Penh high school that became the Khmer Rouge's main interrogation centre. Fewer than 10 are thought to have lived to tell the tale.

Most victims were tortured and forced to confess to a variety of crimes -- mainly being CIA spies -- before being bludgeoned to death in a field on the outskirts of the city. Women, children and even babies were among those butchered.

Even though all of Cambodia's 13 million people have relatives or forebears who perished under the Khmer Rouge, some say the trial is raking up a past best left untouched -- especially since many managed to survive only by collaborating.

"My anger towards the Khmer Rouge has waned over time," said 70-year-old May Ron, who lost six relatives under the regime. "Let bygones be bygones."

Last month, prosecutors lodged formal cases against five top Khmer Rouge suspects, but did not name them.

Besides Duch, they are widely thought to be "Brother Number Two" Noun Chea, former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, former President Khieu Samphan and Meas Muth, a son-in-law of Pol Pot's military chief Ta Mok, who died last year.

"Brother Number One" Pol Pot died in April 1998 in Anlong Veng, a final Khmer Rouge redoubt in jungle-clad mountains on the Thai border.

Torture? What torture? ... Is there anybody left alive to talk about torture?

Government Dismisses Torture Report

Thida Win, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
26/06/2007

A government spokesman has dismissed a recent report on prison torture as an NGOs attempt to secure more funding, and nothing more.

The well-established rights group Licadho published a report this year claiming nearly 200 inmates were tortured or abused in prison in 2006.

Between January and April, 2007, 49 inmates reported torture during police detention, but the group said the number was likely higher.

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said the government was dedicated to solving the problem and was a signatory to an international treaty banning torture.

He said the report was a way that Licadho was "looking for a budget."

Licadho monitors 18 prisons across the country and has been issuing reports on their conditions since 1997.

Cambodia: More effective measures are required to end torture

AS-135-2007
June 25, 2007

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the UN International Day in Support of the Victims of Torture

June 26, 2007

Cambodia acceded to the Convention against (CAT) in 1992. Its criminal law, adopted in the same year, has succinctly criminalised torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of detainees and punishes any public agent who violates this right with one to five years in prison.

Torture and other forms of ill-treatment have declined since then, but they are still a practice against detainees, especially those in police custody. Police often rely on torture to extract confessions. According to a study, in the Municipal Court of Phnom Penh from October 2005 to September 2006, 17 percent of defendants claimed to have been tortured to make a confession, but the court did not take their claims seriously. Public agents have enjoyed impunity for the crimes of torture, except in mid-2006 when a number of police officers were sentenced to prison for the death of a woman in their custody.

Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees will continue despite the fact that Cambodia ratified the optional protocol to CAT, or OPCAT, early this year. The Cambodian government and Parliament have continued to condone these violent state-sanctioned crimes when they adopted the code of criminal procedure after that ratification. In this code, they have failed to guarantee and protect the rights of suspects in police custody to have access to the legal counsel of their choosing immediately from the time of their arrest, to have the presence of counsel during their interrogation by the police and not to incriminate themselves by ensuring their right to remain silent. Furthermore, suspects are denied the right to inform their family of their arrest and place of detention and to have their family visit them. They also are denied the right to undergo medical examinations while in police detention.

In the same code, the Cambodian government and Parliament have also failed to make it mandatory for prosecutors and investigating judges to examine the physical and psychological state of suspects or accused persons when the police bring these people before them and to act upon any suspicion of torture or other ill-treatment. Prosecutors are not given power to make regular visits to places of detention within their respective jurisdictions, and no rules and procedures are laid down for the questioning of suspects and the taking of statements.

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) urges the Cambodian government and Parliament to make up for their failures and end torture and other ill-treatment. They must adopt an additional law on the measures listed above that have been neglected in the new code. They must also honour their other obligations under CAT and OPCAT by enacting a law on the crimes of torture and other ill-treatment, including physical, mental or psychological and pharmacological torture, and a law on national preventive mechanisms as stipulated in OPCAT.

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