Cambodian Court Denies Bail to 21 Held in Strike Clampdown

A Cambodian appeals court refused bail on Tuesday to 21 workers and human rights activists arrested following a deadly government crackdown on a workers’ strike in the capital last month, prompting accusations from rights groups that their case smacked of political interference.


In a closed-door hearing at the Court of Appeals in Phnom Penh without any of the detainees present, judges Khun Leanmeng and Seng Sivatha refused bail on the grounds that the 21 “might compromise security and social order” if released.

“The case is still being investigated, and there are not enough grounds to grant the request to release the 21 people,” they said, despite a deluge of appeals from local and international groups for their release.

The 21 were arrested after a Jan. 3 shootout by security forces during a strike by garment workers demanding higher minimum wages in a crackdown that left five people dead and several others wounded.

They are accused of causing intentional violence and damage to property and face up to up to five years’ imprisonment, as well as well as fines from U.S. $1,000 to $2,500.

Activists protest

Outside the Appeals Court, some 200 activists and supporters of the detainees protested the decision despite a ban on public gatherings in the capital following the crackdown.

A mother of one of the 21 detainees cries as she holds a photo of her son while protesting outside the Appeals Court in Phnom Penh, Feb. 11, 2014. Photo credit: RFA.

“This is very unjust. My father is a patriot, and he didn’t commit any mistake,” the son of one of the detainees, rights defender Vorn Pao, shouted after hearing the ruling.

Lawyer Sam Sokea, one of ten of the detainees’ lawyers present at the hearing, said the 21 would appeal the decision in the Supreme Court as the judge had not provided enough grounds to show that the detainees would be a danger to stability if released.

“We lawyers will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court because this is an inappropriate decision,” he told RFA’s Khmer Service.

Two others arrested with the 21 were discharged from detention following a closed-door hearing on Friday, though authorities gave no reason for their release.

'Political interference'

Local rights watchdog the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) condemned Tuesday’s ruling, saying it was the result of political interference aimed at curbing dissent.

“The decision to deny bail to all but two of the people arrested in early January further indicates that these arrests have never been anything more than an attempt by the [Cambodian government] to silence its critics,” CCHR president Ou Virak said in a statement.

“It also further shows the extent to which the judicial system in Cambodia is flawed and how incapable it is to make decisions free of political interference,” he said.

“This decision is a further attack on freedom of assembly and expression in Cambodia, where the message has already been made clear that people are not allowed to speak out for their rights.”

Naly Pilorge, director of Licadho, another local rights group, said authorities should be more concerned with investigating the soldiers who shot protesters in the crackdown than with the protesters themselves. 

“It’s shameful that 21 workers and human rights defenders have remained in jail for over a month because they took part in a strike while those responsible for the killing of four workers remain at large,” she said in a statement condemning the arrest.

Held in Kampong Cham
The detainees, some of whom have staged a hunger strike, are being held in a remote high-security facility in Kampong Cham province—Correctional Center 3 (CC3), which rights groups have labeled “among the harshest prisons in Cambodia.”

Prison director Kea Sovanna told RFA he had not received orders to transport the detainees to Phnom Penh for the hearing, and that he did not have a means of transportation to get them there.

Upon their arrest, the detainees were held incommunicado and denied access to medical treatment for several days, rights groups have said.

Bann Sina, mother of detainee Kun Sambathpiseth, said she wanted her son to be released so she could care for injuries he sustained in the crackdown.

“My son didn’t commit any mistake. I want the court to please release my son. I want to take my son to treat his injuries,” she told RFA.

Chief Prosecutor at the Appeals Court Ouk Savuth could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Vietnam Demands Inquiry into 'Racist' Killing in Cambodia

Vietnamese authorities called Tuesday for an investigation into the beating death of a Vietnamese-Cambodian man following a traffic accident in Phnom Penh that has raised ethnic tensions.


Nguyen Yaing Ngoc, 28, was chased and attacked by a group of Cambodians after he responded to a call for help from a neighbor whose motorbike had been struck by a car, according to Cambodian media reports.

Witnesses said the crowd had been incited to action by shouts of “yuon,” a derogatory term for Vietnamese in Cambodia, where ethnic tensions sometimes rise high amid competing territorial claims and immigration concerns.

Ngoc had scuffled briefly with a Cambodian family unable to move their car past the motorbike, which had been left parked in an alley, before he was pursued and killed, according to a Cambodia Daily report on Tuesday.

Tran Vang Thong, a spokesman for the Vietnamese embassy in Phnom Penh, called for an immediate inquiry into the death.

“We demand that the authorities investigate and bring the killers to justice and hold them accountable according to Cambodian law,” Thong told RFA’s Vietnamese Service.

“Meanwhile, we ask for measures to be taken to prevent such racist activities or any instigation of racism or discrimination against Vietnamese in Cambodia,” he said.

“We want an investigation,” Thong said in a separate interview with RFA’s Khmer Service, adding, “The Cambodian government must ensure that no killing like this ever happens again.”

Killed over a word

Ngoc’s pregnant wife said she was shocked that one derogatory word could lead to her husband’s death.

“I didn’t believe that my husband would be killed over this word,” Ngoc’s wife Men Sinath, eight months’ pregnant, told the Cambodia Daily on Tuesday.

“He was born in Cambodia. He lived all his life in Cambodia. He has a Cambodian wife and soon a Cambodian baby, but he was killed for being Vietnamese?”

A deputy police chief of Phnom Penh’s Chak Angre Loeu commune said a suspect in the killing, 50-year-old Vong Chanvutha, is now in custody and “will face the law,” the report said.

Speaking to RFA on Tuesday, Cambodian Internal Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gen. Khieu Sopheak blamed ethnic tensions in Cambodia on the policies of the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), which have led, he said, to “misunderstandings” between Vietnamese and Cambodians.

“Our [own] government policy is nondiscriminating,” Sopheak told RFA’s Vietnamese Service, calling Vietnam and Cambodia “good neighbors.”

Also speaking to RFA, CNRP spokesperson Nem Panharith denied party responsibility for exacerbating tensions between the two groups, blaming the incident instead on the Cambodian public’s “lack of confidence in our court system.”

“The government needs to stop violence on the streets,” he said.

Wary over influence

Many Cambodians are wary of Vietnam’s influence over their country’s affairs.

An estimated 1.7 million people, or one in four Cambodians, died in what came to be called the “Killing Fields” after the ultra-Communist Khmer Rouge took power in 1975. The regime was unseated when Vietnam invaded the country four years later.

Vietnam occupied the country for a decade before withdrawing its troops and signing the Paris Peace Agreement to restore sovereignty and stability to Cambodia.

North Korean College Entrance Exams to Be Computerized

A computerized grading system for entrance exams to major universities in North Korea will be extended to local colleges beginning in March, but logistical snarls may result as parents in rural areas struggle to get students to the testing sites, according to sources inside the country.


Applicants who previously took handwritten exams—all on the same day—at their local colleges will now have to travel on separate dates to a single location in each province to be tested, a source in North Korea’s northern Chagang province told RFA’s Korean Service.

“The local college entrance exam will be taken at the provincial library in each province. These will be set up with a computerized grading system that the colleges don’t have,” he said.

However, these libraries are too small to accommodate the large number of students who were formerly tested on a single date at separate schools in each province, he added.

“Smaller groups will now have to travel on different days to each library to take the multiple-choice exams,” he said.

Travel woes
Also speaking to RFA, a source in North Korea’s northern Yanggang province voiced concern over potential travel problems and the fairness of the exam.

“In the past, when there was only one exam date, students’ parents could pool their money to rent cars” to take them to the testing sites, he said.

“But now, with testing done on different days, it will be harder for families to do this separately.”

And because some students will now take the exam ahead of others, he said, there is a greater chance that test questions will “leak out” and be shared ahead of time.

Meanwhile, admission to North Korea’s top universities still depends on the “networks and success” of one’s parents, according to a leading North Korea expert.

“Money buys entrance into schools, changes test scores, and even allows one to avoid being called out into the fields to work,” Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, said in a recent RFA commentary.

“Most of the students studying at universities in the country are the children of the elite.”