More than 100 police and military police were deployed Thursday to disburse scores of students attempting to stage a protest for the release of student activist Ken Sara, who was arrested after the Jan 29 anti-Thai riots in Phnom Penh.
The police operation, which included threats to arrest human rights workers and journalists, was criticized by a consortium of rights organizations as a violation of peoples’ constitutional right to peaceful demonstrations and “freedoms of expression.”
“The government right now wants to show it is a dictatorship and abuses human rights,” said Um Sam An, president of the Student Movement for Democracy.
“We hold demonstrations because we want to ask the government to release Ken Sara because he was not involved in the anti-Thai riots,” Um Sam An said, adding that King Norodom Sihanouk also supports his release and the government was ignoring the wishes of the monarch.
Um Sam An warned that Thursday’s police action would not deter the students from staging a protest in the future.
The police surrounded the Faculty of Law and Economics in an operation aimed at stopping an expected 400 students from gathering for the planned protest. Police also ordered reporters and human rights workers away from the faculty building.
“The government’s forces threatened to arrest the demonstrators, the human rights workers and the journalists and confine them in a truck if they continued their activities,” the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee—a group of 18 rights groups—said in a statement.
“The ban on demonstrating…and the exclusion of the press and human rights workers from the events are violations of the Constitution,” the statement said.
Municipal Cabinet Chief Mann Chhoeun declined to grant permission for the student protest, claiming it would “affect the city’s security,” according to a municipality letter sent to the student group on Wednesday.
After the students were disbursed, some 30 retreated to the Student Movement offices in Tuol Kok district, where they were again surrounded by police when they attempted to march to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court.
Beehive Radio owner Mam Sonando—who is free on bail for his alleged role in the riots—had recording equipment confiscated by police. It was later returned after a long argument with the officers who took it.
Minister of Information Lu Laysreng said Thursday he would investigate the allegations of police misconduct.
