Tuesday 12 February 2008

Rights Razed - The 2008 Amnesty Report on Forced Evictions and Relocations in Cambodia

“My son was arrested and beaten up while he was collecting belongings from
the house. I saw them walking away with him, beating him. Then he was tied
up and put on the truck.”

“Before, he went fishing and farming. Now who can I rely on? Since he was
arrested, I have not managed to earn anything. My house was completely burnt
down.”
Villager forcibly evicted from Mittapheap 4 village, Sihanoukville, on 20 April 2007

"Although there have been some positive recent signs, including repeated calls by
Prime Minister Hun Sen for an end to land-grabbing and sporadic action against
people involved in land theft, the Cambodian government has not demonstrated
political will to ensure an end to forced evictions or the factors leading to them.
Instead government representatives are seen to be involved in or standing by as the
law is applied arbitrarily or by-passed altogether, in ways that grant impunity to those
in political or economic power for arbitrarily expropriating land from marginalized
people living in poverty.
As long as this pattern is allowed to go on, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians live
under threat of being forcibly evicted – in Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville and urban
centres, but increasingly also in rural areas."

- From the Amnesty Report (Click Here to download a copy)

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