Poverty behind bars, as experienced by victims of evictions in Cambodia

Poverty behind bars, as experienced by victims of evictions in Cambodia

Cambodia Ka-set
By Duong Sokha

16-12-2008


Cramped, overpopulated cells; malnutrition, lack of healthcare services. Prison conditions in Cambodia are appalling. The famous Prey Sar penal institution, located seven miles away from the capital, houses some 2,500 prisoners and operates at more than double capacity – it was originally designed to house no more than 1,200 inmates. Some prisoners find themselves incarcerated because their only crime was to be poor and try and resist forced eviction.


Evicted people: victims on several levels
2008 is coming to an end and more than 10,000 prisoners are currently crammed in Cambodian cells, and among them, more than 600 under-18 inmates and more than 400 foreign detainees. Malnourished and left to look after themselves without any healthcare available on the premises, they are not even allowed to have access to drinking water. Some of these prisoners are poor people who have committed the sole crime of refusing to leave their home. They are being sued on charges of “destruction of other people's property, aggravated assault or infringement of private property rights”, when all they did was showing opposition in front of police forces when their community suffered forced evictions meant to clean up towns of squats and other urban areas said to be anarchical.


Over the past few years, forced evictions have grown in numbers and have been qualified by local and international Human rights NGOs as frequent Human rights violations and represent the most serious plague in the country today. Thousands of families are regularly evicted from their homes to give way to property developers or multinational companies. Massive commercial centres, huge office towers or imposing casinos are built and only benefit a small minority of people in the country, since Cambodia is still classified as one of the world's poorest countries.
Hem Chum, a 47 years-old journalist working at the fortnightly newspaper “The Cry of Justice”, a rather confidential publication, spent two years in prison after being charged for the “destruction of other people's personal property”. In fact, this Cambodian citizen was simply the victim of one out of the many other forced evictions carried out in the country. He was condemned for having stood in the way during a forcible operation of eviction carried out in June 2006 in the district of Chambok Chap, in the heart of Phnom Penh. The compensation offered to the evicted people by the company who bought their grounds – a small piece of land in the village of Andong, about 13 miles away from Phnom Penh in the middle of nowhere – was unacceptable to him.


“I was sent behind bars for two years but I am innocent”, he claimed, still shocked by the whole experience. The only thing I did was to defend my land and decide to follow through on my cause. I ended up in a 16m² cell with no less than ten detainees inside it. There was no ventilation, we suffocated in there and we were so packed together that I could only sleep sideways.

“Gravel in our bowl of rice”
The Cambodian government set to 1,500 riels (0,38 dollar) the daily expenses (food, water, electricity, clothing, medicine...) for one prisoner. A prisoner typically receives 0,55 kg of rice per day. “This is not enough”, Hem Chun insisted. “We must top up our ration with what our family send us. There was a period of time when we even found gravel in our rice. Healthcare was limited to Paracetamol. Once, I suffered from acute sinusitis and asked to get treatment outside of the prison, unsuccessfully”. In 2007, 60 cases of death among prisoners have been reported. Between January and September 2008, the figures amount to 37 people, according to the report issued by the Cambodian Prisons Department in September 2008.


The land question was at the heart of the December 10th Human Rights Day celebrated by a coalition of 19 local NGOs. The march they organised in the centre of Phnom Penh was attended by 2,000 members of the civil society, diplomats, monks, students and victims of evictions. All of them sported a “Human rights: our rights” tee-shirt. Under the close surveillance of the authorities, they called with insistence for the liberation of the people who are still in prison and urged the government to stop the evictions and arrests linked with land conflicts.
Some fifty people are still said to be behind bars for having defended their home during land disputes.


Rights still flouted
Kek Galabru, president of the Cambodian league for the promotion and protection of Human rights (LICADHO) did not hesitate to criticise the dreadful conditions that prisoners have to endure. “In order to know if a country respects Human rights or not, you only have to take a look at their prisons. If prisoners' rights are not taken into consideration, this means that the country is not willing to respect Human rights”, the campaigner detailed.


Samkol Sokhan, deputy director general of the General Prisons Department at the Ministry of Interior, has for his part a different perspective on things. “This is the maximum that the state can ever do. Even our prison warders only earn between 160,000 and 200,000 riels (US$40 to US$50) per month. I often advise our civil servants to look after detainees and make sure their rights are respected”, the official said, pointing out that the Ministries of Interior and Health were working together on the question of medicine. He added that a new correctional facility should soon be opened in the province of Pursat, with a view to regulate overpopulation in cells. The Ministry of Interior is still waiting for the approval of the Ministry of Agriculture on that matter - the latter owns the 960-hectare piece of land - and will then launch building works.


This article was published on the Tribune des droits humains website on the occasion of the 60th Anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights on December 10th, 2008.