Ten demonstrators arrested

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post 

TEN residents of Kandal province were arrested Sunday after the violent conclusion of a protest in which 400 demonstrators blocked a section of National Road 2 to express their outrage at a private development company that on Friday dispatched bulldozers and excavators to disputed rice fields, a local rights group said.

The protest, which backed up traffic for 5 kilometres, began early Sunday morning and ended at 5pm, when about 100 regular and military police arrived in Kandal Stung district to disperse the group, said Ouch Leng, a land programme officer for Adhoc. When the protesters refused to disperse, Ouch Leng said, the police beat some with batons and arrested 10 men and women.

Kandal provincial police chief Eav Chamreun denied that police had beaten any of the protesters, and said that they had attempted to negotiate with the group for “about four hours” before deciding to arrest some of them. He said he did not know how many had been arrested, but that they were being held at the Kandal Stung district police office.

“Most of the people we arrested are ringleaders and drunken men, so we arrested them and will hold them at the district police office for questioning. They cannot take the road as their hostage,” he said.

A representative of the protesters, 45-year-old Than Vuthy, said they had decided to protest after three excavators and three bulldozers from the Heng Development Company appeared on Friday near a 200-hectare section of disputed land in Prek Sleng commune. 

Readmore