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CAMBODIA: Police allegedly assault venders in Battambang province

October 30, 2008

ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME

Urgent Appeal Case: AHRC-UAC-241-2008

30 October 2008
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CAMBODIA: Police allegedly assault venders in Battambang province

ISSUES: Police assault; police negligence; threat
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Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that the police allegedly assaulted a family of venders in Battambang city, Battambang province, Cambodia on 25 October 2008. The police damaged their trays and severely assaulted the father of the family. Their beating caused him to sustain serious injuries and lose consciousness.

CASE DETAILS: (Based on the information received from Yin Meng Ly, ADHOC human rights NGO, Battambang province)

On the afternoon of 25 October, a force of eight policemen, armed with pistols, chased a women vender named Ken Narath, aged 21 and her sister Kin Narey, 17, with their truck. The sisters were both street venders selling pickled delicacies on trays.They were pursued from a garden to Hun Sen Bridge in Rumchek IV village, Rattanak commune, Battambang distict, Battambang province. The police caught up with the venders when they reached their parents who were selling fresh sugar cane juice. The police officers quickly jumped off their truck, seized the trays of delicacies, threw the delicacies on the ground, and grabbed the women to put them in their truck.

The two sisters resisted the police, holding on to their trays and refusing to go up into the truck. Seeing the police assault in which Kin Narath's blouse was torn apart, their father Kin Thina, aged, 48, intervened to protect her from further assault. The police then grabbed hold of him, beat him and attempted to push him onto the truck. But he refused to get in the truck. While being dragged half way up the vehicle, an officer beat him again. He fell off the truck, flat on his face, with all his full weight, his head hitting the tarmac hard. Another officer on the ground then used his foot to pin Kin to the tarmac. Kin then lost consciousness, lying motionless, while the police drove away.

Unable to get anything except a plastic chair belonging to Kin Thina, the police drove off, leaving Ken lying on the tarmac, injured and unconscious. Passersby and motorcycle-taxi drivers helped lift the man onto a folding chair under a nearby shade tree. Later on his family took him to the hospital for medical treatment. Ken suffered serious injuries to the left side of his forehead as a result of the fall.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Kin Thina and his family are living in Anh-chagn village, O Char commune, Battambang district, Battambang province. The police had videotaped their action against these venders at the time of the incident.

The chief of Battambang district police, Thuch Ra, denied that his officers had assaulted Kin Thina and his daughters. He accused them of assaulting his men instead, and was preparing to charge them with battery.

This was the second assault on venders by the same police force in the same area. On 2 October a group of seven police officers assaulted a man and his daughter, also venders, in a garden in the same village. The man suffered a fractured rib as a result (see AHRC-UAC-227-2008).

Meanwhile, the Battambang district police threatened to sue the journalist, whose pen name was Bopea, working for the Koh Santepheap newspaper. The police alleged that his story was untrue. This journalist went into hiding for a couple of days, not because of the pending law suit but from fear of physical attack. He had also written the story of the first assault. In both stories he was highly critical of the brutality of the Battmabang district police.

SUGGESTED ACTION:

Please write your letters to the authorities below to urge them to conduct an investigation into the Battambang district police's assault on Ken Thina and take action against the perpetrators and their superiors.

Please be informed that the AHRC has also written a separate letter to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Question of Torture, Special Representative of the Secretary-General of human rights in Cambodia and OHCHR in Cambodia calling for intervention in this case.

To support this appeal, please click here:

SAMPLE LETTER:

Dear _____,

CAMBODIA: Police allegedly assault venders in Battambang province

Name of victims: Ken Thina, 48, and members of his family, Anh-chagn village, O Char commune, Battambang district, Battambang province
Alleged perpetrators: police officers of Battambang district, Battambang province
Place of incident: New Bridge, Rumchek IV village, Rattanak commune, Battambang district, Battambang province
Date of incident: 25 October 2008

I am writing to express my deep concern with the police assault on a man named Kin Thina.  They beat him, causing him to fall off their truck, flat on his face, with his head hitting the tarmac with the full force of his body. The police then drove off, leaving Ken lying unconscious, the left side of his forehead having sustained a serious injury.

The incident took place on the afternoon of 25 October near Hun Sen Bridge in Rumchek IV village, Rattanak commune, Battambang district, Battrambang province. A group of eight police officers got out of a truck and suddenly seized trays of pickled delicacies of the two sisters, Kinn Narath, 21, and Kinn Narey, 17, both street venders. The police chased them from the garden, caught up with them when they reached their parents who were selling fresh sugar cane juice near Hun Sen Bridge.

The police officers quickly jumped off their truck, seized the trays of delicacies and threw them on the ground. They then grabbed the two sisters attempting to get them on the truck as well. The young women resisted the police, holding on to their trays and refusing to get into the truck.

Seeing the police assault in which Kin Narath's blouse was torn apart, their father Kin Thina, aged, 48, intervened to protect her from further police assault. The police then grabbed hold of him, beat him and tried to push him onto the truck. But he refused to get in. At this point he had been dragged half way up the vehicle. An officer beat him again making him fall off the truck, flat on his face, his head hitting the tarmac with his full weight. Another officer on the ground then used his foot to pin Kin to the ground. Kin lost consciousness, lying motionless, while the police drove off.

I have learned that this was the second police assault on venders in the same area in Rumeck IV village. There was hardly a month between assaults, the first one having taken place on 2 October. I have further learned that the Battambnag district police threatened to sue the journalist, known by his pen name as Bopea, working for the Koh Santepheap newspaper. He had covered both assaults and was highly critical of the police brutality. Bopea had to go into hiding fearing he might be physically attacked.

I find the repeated action of the police of the Battambang district against those venders so repugnant that I need to urge you to put an end to it immediately. I request you to investigate the police assault against Ken Thina and his family, to take action against the perpetrators, and to require them to pay adequate compensation to all the victims. Action must also be taken against the superiors of those police officers for their failure to prevent the brutality of their subordinates.

I further urge you to protect press freedom and ensure that journalist Bopea will suffer no harm.

I trust you will positively consider my request above.

Yours sincerely,

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PLEASE SEND YOUR LETTERS TO:

1. Mr. Hun Sen
Prime Minister
Cabinet of the Prime Minister
No. 38, Russian Federation Street
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
Fax: +855 23 36 0666
Tel: +855 2321 9898
E-mail: cabinet1b@camnet.com.kh

2. Mr. Sar Kheng
Deputy-Prime Minister
Minister of Interior
No.275 Norodom Blvd., Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
Fax/phone: +855 23 721 905 / 23 726 052 / 23 721 190
E-Mail: info@interior.gov.kh

3. Mr. Ang Vong Vathna
Minister of Justice
No 240, Sothearos Blvd.
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
Fax: +855 23 36 4119 / 21 6622
E-mail: moj@cambodia.gov.kh

4. Mr. Henro Raken
Prosecutor-General
Court of Appeal
No 240, Sothearos Blvd.
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
Fax: +855 23 21 66 22; +855 23 21 63 22
Tel: +855 11 86 27 70

5. General Hok Lundy
National Police Commissioner
General-Commisariat of National Police
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
Fax: +855 23 22 09 52
Tel: +855 23 21 65 85

Thank you.

Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission (ua@ahrchk.org)

Document Type :
Urgent Appeal Case
Document ID :
AHRC-UAC-241-2008
Countries :
Issues :
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Extended Introduction: Urgent Appeals, theory and practice

A need for dialogue

Many people across Asia are frustrated by the widespread lack of respect for human rights in their countries.  Some may be unhappy about the limitations on the freedom of expression or restrictions on privacy, while some are affected by police brutality and military killings.  Many others are frustrated with the absence of rights on labour issues, the environment, gender and the like. 

Yet the expression of this frustration tends to stay firmly in the private sphere.  People complain among friends and family and within their social circles, but often on a low profile basis. This kind of public discourse is not usually an effective measure of the situation in a country because it is so hard to monitor. 

Though the media may cover the issues in a broad manner they rarely broadcast the private fears and anxieties of the average person.  And along with censorship – a common blight in Asia – there is also often a conscious attempt in the media to reflect a positive or at least sober mood at home, where expressions of domestic malcontent are discouraged as unfashionably unpatriotic. Talking about issues like torture is rarely encouraged in the public realm.

There may also be unwritten, possibly unconscious social taboos that stop the public reflection of private grievances.  Where authoritarian control is tight, sophisticated strategies are put into play by equally sophisticated media practices to keep complaints out of the public space, sometimes very subtly.  In other places an inner consensus is influenced by the privileged section of a society, which can control social expression of those less fortunate.  Moral and ethical qualms can also be an obstacle.

In this way, causes for complaint go unaddressed, un-discussed and unresolved and oppression in its many forms, self perpetuates.  For any action to arise out of private frustration, people need ways to get these issues into the public sphere.

Changing society

In the past bridging this gap was a formidable task; it relied on channels of public expression that required money and were therefore controlled by investors.  Printing presses were expensive, which blocked the gate to expression to anyone without money.  Except in times of revolution the media in Asia has tended to serve the well-off and sideline or misrepresent the poor.

Still, thanks to the IT revolution it is now possible to communicate with large audiences at little cost.  In this situation there is a real avenue for taking issues from private to public, regardless of the class or caste of the individual.

Practical action

The AHRC Urgent Appeals system was created to give a voice to those affected by human rights violations, and by doing so, to create a network of support and open avenues for action.  If X’s freedom of expression is denied, if Y is tortured by someone in power or if Z finds his or her labour rights abused, the incident can be swiftly and effectively broadcast and dealt with. The resulting solidarity can lead to action, resolution and change. And as more people understand their rights and follow suit, as the human rights consciousness grows, change happens faster. The Internet has become one of the human rights community’s most powerful tools.   

At the core of the Urgent Appeals Program is the recording of human rights violations at a grass roots level with objectivity, sympathy and competence. Our information is firstly gathered on the ground, close to the victim of the violation, and is then broadcast by a team of advocates, who can apply decades of experience in the field and a working knowledge of the international human rights arena. The flow of information – due to domestic restrictions – often goes from the source and out to the international community via our program, which then builds a pressure for action that steadily makes its way back to the source through his or her own government.   However these cases in bulk create a narrative – and this is most important aspect of our program. As noted by Sri Lankan human rights lawyer and director of the Asian Human Rights Commission, Basil Fernando:

"The urgent appeal introduces narrative as the driving force for social change. This idea was well expressed in the film Amistad, regarding the issue of slavery. The old man in the film, former president and lawyer, states that to resolve this historical problem it is very essential to know the narrative of the people. It was on this basis that a court case is conducted later. The AHRC establishes the narrative of human rights violations through the urgent appeals. If the narrative is right, the organisation will be doing all right."

Patterns start to emerge as violations are documented across the continent, allowing us to take a more authoritative, systemic response, and to pinpoint the systems within each country that are breaking down. This way we are able to discover and explain why and how violations take place, and how they can most effectively be addressed. On this path, larger audiences have opened up to us and become involved: international NGOs and think tanks, national human rights commissions and United Nations bodies.  The program and its coordinators have become a well-used tool for the international media and for human rights education programs. All this helps pave the way for radical reforms to improve, protect and to promote human rights in the region.