Prison and judicial officials on Tuesday continued to conceal the whereabouts of 23 people who were arrested during protests by striking garment workers in Phnom Penh last week, rights workers and a defense lawyer said.
Ten people, including union leaders and political activists, were arrested by soldiers on Thursday. A further 13 were arrested by military police on Friday during the suppression of a protest that saw five striking workers shot dead.
Am Sam Ath, senior investigator with rights group Licadho, said the family and lawyers of those detained were still being refused their requests for any information.
“Up to today, we have had no information about their whereabouts,” Mr. Sam Ath said. “All of our defense lawyers—and the relatives—have also confirmed that they still are not aware of the whereabouts of the clients.”
“There are still rumors circulating that they are being held at CC3 or CC4,” Mr. Sam Ath added, referring to correctional centers 3 and 4—large prisons located in the provinces of Pursat and Kompong Cham respectively.
“Our staff will go down to the prison in Kompong Cham province [CC3] tomorrow to check.”
Choung Choungy, defense lawyer for six of the arrested, said he would submit a request for bail on behalf of his clients at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court today but was also being kept in the dark about his clients’ location.
Chan Soveth, senior investigator with local rights group Adhoc, said that he too believed the 23 were being held at the notorious Kompong Cham prison.
A joint statement released by Licadho and the Cambodian Legal Education Center on Monday described CC3 as being “among the harshest prisons in Cambodia.”
CC3 director Kea Sovanna refused to confirm or deny on Monday that the prisoners were there, but could not be reached Tuesday.
Sok Sam Oeun, director of the Cambodian Defenders Project, a legal aid NGO, said that he had not seen a similar case in Cambodia since the U.N. supervised elections here in 1993.
“This is the kind of problem that happened during the 1980s quite often, and so perhaps this means we have gone back to that period,” Mr. Sam Oeun said.
“[Now] sometimes they do not allow the prisoners to contact their lawyer or family member, but even then they would still not hide from people where they were held.”
(Additional reporting by Alex Willemyns)
