Release immediately land rights activist Yorm Bopha, arbitrarily detained since one year!

Ms.Yorm Bopha, a housing rights activist who was pivotal in theprotests against forced evictions of residents from the Boeung Kak Lakecommunity in Phnom Penh, was detained on September 4, 2012 and sentenced to three years in prisonon December 27, 2012, on the basis of questionable allegations that Ms. Bopha has always denied.

On June 14, 2013, the Court ofAppeal in Phnom Penh decided to uphold the conviction of Ms. Bopha, butsuspended one year of her three-year original sentence. She then appealed tothe Supreme Court. In the meantime, she remains detained in Prey Sar prison,where she is expected to serve the rest of her sentence until September 2014.

“Ms. Yorm Bopha is being detained merely for being at the forefront ofthe campaign in favour of the Boeung Kak Lake community’s rights and calling for the release of community members who were arbitrarilyarrested in May 2012 after protesting their forced evictions”,OMCT Secretary General Gerald Staberock said today. “Accordingly, she should be released immediately and unconditionally, asher detention merely aims at obstructing her human rights activities”, headded.

Moreover, on September 4,2013, the Phnom Penh authoritiesrestricted a peaceful march by Boeung Kak community representatives andsupporters to mark the one-year imprisonment of Ms. Yorm Bopha. The communityplanned to march from their area of Phnom Penh to the Wat Phnom pagoda and thento the Supreme Court to demand that the court urgently hear Ms. Bopha’s case.When they notified City Hall that they planned to hold the march, City Hallresponded that if they were planning on having more than 200 participants, theycould only carry out their activities within the Boeung Kak area.

Despite the lack of permission from City Hall, the community decided toproceed, believing that there were no legal grounds to prevent them frompeacefully demonstrating. When they attempted to leave from Boeung Kak thismorning to march towards Wat Phnom, several groups of community members wearingt-shirts and carrying flowers, flags, loudspeakers and other campaigns materialwere prevented from exiting by the police. The community representatives then askedthe team from the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) who was monitoringthe rally to load their van with the campaigns material so that they would beallowed to leave. The police and military police then stopped the CCHR van andprevented it from exiting. The police and other security forces also confiscatedaggressively the materials supporters behind the van were carrying, evenhitting one man on the head. Following the intervention of rights groups andobservers, the march was finally able to proceed.

“We condemn theobstacles to the peaceful march that was organised to mark the one-yearimprisonment of Ms. Yorm Bopha and we reiterate our call on the Cambodian authoritiesto ensure in allcircumstances that human rights defenders are ableto work without any fear of reprisals”,FIDH President Karim Lahidji said.

The Observatory more generally urges theauthorities of Cambodia to conform to the United Nations Declaration on HumanRights Defenders, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and internationalhuman rights instruments ratified by Cambodia.