Human Rights Watch today strongly condemned the arrest of two Cambodian human rights workers in Cambodia's port city of Sihanoukville.
Meas Minear and Kim Sen, staff members of the Cambodian human rights organization Licadho, were arrested on December 21 after they monitored demonstrations and received complaints from citizens in Sihanoukville angered about the dumping of industrial material thought to be toxic. The waste had been shipped from Taiwan to a site about fifteen kilometers from Sihanoukville.
"These arrests send an ominous message about the Cambodian government's commitment to respecting basic human rights. Human rights workers must be allowed to do their jobs," said Sidney Jones, executive director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. "Unless there is evidence that the two workers committed criminal activities, defined as such by international standards, they should be immediately released."
On December 21 at 10:15 a.m., Licadho staffperson Kim Sen was arrested by ten policemen, who surrounded a coffeeshop where he and two other Licadho employees were eating. On the same day at 10:45 a.m., Licadho staffperson Meas Minear was arrested by two policemen who entered the Licadho offices in Sihanoukville. Both Licadho employees were taken to the Provincial Police Commissariat, where they were held for five hours. No warrants, summons, or other forms of written documentation were provided to either men at the time of their arrest, and lawyers and local and international human rights workers were denied access to them while they were detained at the Police Commissariat. At 3:30 p.m., the two rights workers and a Sihanoukville market vender who was arrested the same day were transferred to the Sihanoukville Provincial Court, where they were interrogated by an investigating judge. The judge told the three that they were charged with robbery, wrongful damage of property, and participating in a demonstration. After interviewing the three men, the judge dropped the third charge, of participating in a demonstration. At 6:15 p.m. that evening, the three men were transferred to the Sihanoukville provincial prison, accompanied by two truckfuls of armed policemen.
Several hundred people including students, market vendors, and dock workers conducted protests in Sihanoukville on December 20 and 21 about the toxic dumping, which has been widely reported in the domestic and international press in Cambodia. Some of the demonstrations turned violent, as mobs ransacked and looted the homes and offices of local officials whom they held responsible for allowing the waste to be imported from Taiwan. Cambodian human rights workers were present during the demonstrations in a monitoring capacity, and also helped citizens file complaints about the toxic dumping.
"These arrests will have a chilling effect not only on human rights organizations and their ability to do their work, but on the general population in feeling free to exercise their freedoms to assembly and association, rights that are enshrined in the Cambodian Constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Cambodia is a party," said Jones.
