Thursday, July 22, 2010

Five vets arrested after protest for land

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

 FIVE disabled veterans who this week pressed authorities to grant them a 4,000-hectare land concession were arrested as they tried to return home from a protest yesterday, representatives said.

Yan Yoeuk, director of Association Cripple Development, said roughly 160 demonstrators had agreed to end their protest, which began Monday, by yesterday morning. But he said five men were arrested near Wat Phnom as they were making their way home.

He said representatives from Prime Minister Hun Sen’s cabinet had earlier taken thumbprints from the protesters and vowed to resolve the issue.
But the subsequent arrests cast doubt over the promise, he said. “The authorities cheated my people by forcing them to give thumbprints to get the land,” he said.

Ouch Leng, a land programme officer for the rights group Adhoc, said he visited the five men at the Daun Penh district police office.

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