Friday, May. 25, 2012
AP
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia --
Human rights groups in Cambodia expressed outrage Friday over prison
sentences imposed on 13 women who were protesting being evicted from
their land without adequate compensation.
The women were
sentenced Thursday by a Phnom Penh court after being found guilty of
aggravated rebellion and illegal occupation of land in a three-hour
trial.
Their trial came amid heightened concern in Cambodia about
land grabbing, which is sometimes linked to corruption and the use of
deadly force to carry out evictions.
This month, a
visiting U.N. human rights envoy warned that the issue was a volatile
social problem, and a teenage girl was shot dead by security forces
carrying out an eviction.
"Sentencing
to jail 13 people who have been victimized by land grabbing is a
complete injustice," said Ou Virak, director of the Cambodian Center
for Human Rights. "There was no fair trial."
Those sentenced, who
included a 72-year-old woman, had been residents of Phnom Penh's Boueng
Kak lake area, which the government awarded to a Chinese company for
commercial development, including a hotel, office buildings and luxury
housing.
They were arrested Tuesday when they tried to rebuild
their homes on the land where their old houses were demolished by the
developers in 2010.
The group has protested several times in the
last few years to demand land titles they said had been promised by
Prime Minister Hun Sen's government. They claimed that the city
government resettled some families, but did not include them.
Ou
Virak said the issue of the rich and powerful grabbing land from the
poor - who then are arrested if they resist or complain - was becoming
more serious.
Pung Chhic Kek, president of the local human rights
group Licadho, said the case against the women was groundless and
described the legal proceedings as "a show trial and ridiculous."
She said that lawyers from her organization were barred from talking with the defendants and introducing witnesses.
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