Three groups of protesters crisscrossed Phnom Penh Friday morning over longstanding labor, land and political issues, submitting petitions to various government institutions and the E.U.
Around 70 people representing families facing eviction on the northern Boeng Tamok lake visited the Land Management Ministry, near the lake, then moved onto the central Council of Ministers building, then further south to the National Assembly.
A protester, Prak Sophea, said the group had already complained to the commune, district, municipality and prime minister’s cabinet but there was no action.
The large Boeng Tamok lake has been privatized and divvied up among connected individuals and state institutions, and is now being rapidly filled up for development. Families who live in shacks along the lake’s shore are being told to resettle elsewhere.
“We have no more trust in the district hall, we don’t have trust in City Hall nor the prime minister’s cabinet, so we have to put the petition everywhere, especially the big institutions, in order for them to know and not for them to have a reason to later say that they didn’t know about this,” Sophea said. “We don’t care if we lose income from doing this. We want our petition to be everywhere and for our problem to be heard.”
The district has said that it had offered the families plots of land away from the lake, but they were now living illegally by the water.
Meanwhile, around 100 NagaWorld casino strikers returned to the prime minister’s cabinet representative office at Wat Botum and the National Assembly to seek action on petitions filed there last month.
Chhim Sokhom, the casino union’s vice president, said she had heard nothing from those institutions. “We want to ask them — have they received or checked the petition? And how can they resolve this?”
Around 200 unionists from the casino have been protesting mass layoffs last year that they say targeted the union’s leaders and active members. Sokhom said last month’s petition had thumbprints from 674 union members, and the protesters would keep returning until they got a response.
“How many more days do they need? We want clear information. It is easy for us to follow up.”
Finally, a group of political protesters known as the Friday Women visited the E.U. delegation building on Norodom Blvd. to submit a petition over the jailing of their husbands, who are largely opposition political activists. Some of the husbands were sentenced to jail as part of mass-trial verdicts handed down last month.
On Friday morning, Daun Penh district police blocked the Friday Women protesters, who normally protest weekly outside the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, as they held up banners outside the E.U. building.
“This is not the court. You are here to submit the petition, not to hold up a banner like this,” one officer told the protesters. One of the banners features Seng Chan Theary, a Cambodian-American lawyer jailed last month as part of the mass trials.
Protester Prum Chantha, whose husband Kak Komphear was sentenced to six years in jail, said E.U. representatives had told her they would follow up on the case.
“We come here today to find a solution and justice for our husbands who have been sentenced to jail for three to six years with no reason. We don’t accept this. We are the victims,” Chantha said. “Where is your ‘Thank you, peace’ when you are hurting people and arresting people and putting them all in jail like this?” she said, referring to the government’s ubiquitous slogan.
Additional reporting by Roun Ry and Keat Soriththeavy
