Police in Kandal province are seeking to arrest three men after footage emerged last week of them running through a Vietnamese graveyard in Sa’ang district damaging headstones.
“The three guilty people used hammers to smash 11 Vietnamese graves,” said deputy district police chief Soy Saravoan.
“In the video they said, ‘Please support moving all Vietnamese from our country.’ It is a political crime.”
The crime occurred on July 6 and was reported to police the next day by the local Vietnamese-Cambodian association, but police did not open an investigation until Friday, when footage of the incident was widely shared online, he said.
“When we saw it posted on Facebook, we knew there would be a big reaction so we had to take action,” Mr. Saravoan said.
Sim Chy, the director of the Khmer-Vietnamese Association in Phnom Penh, appealed for the men to be “educated” and for increased security at the graveyard in Prek Koy commune, where about 100 ethnic Vietnamese are buried.
“I think in Vietnam, they would be punished,” Mr. Chy said of the offenders.
“But Cambodians and Vietnamese, we love each other, so educating them is fine.”
