Three of four environmental activists arrested on Wednesday are accused of plotting, a crime punishable by five to 10 years in prison, according to National Police.
Foreign embassies and rights advocates have decried the sentencing of three members of an environmentalist group to more than a year in prison over their activism, with some, including the group’s founder, saying they should be released and their calls for environmental protection supported rather than criminalized.
Three youth activists for environmental group Mother Nature stood firm in the closing of their incitement trial on Thursday as the presiding judge pressed them that the group’s Facebook page was illegal, the government filling in lakes would improve traffic, and the activists’ research was insufficient.
Three Mother Nature environmentalists — arrested while preparing a video campaign against the infilling of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Tamok lake — disputed the alleged criminality of their actions while on trial on Wednesday, arguing that raising concerns is not “incitement” as charged, their lawyer said.
Environmental advocacy group Mother Nature Cambodia is known for their confrontational videos, with activists exposing crimes against nature. But with three members jailed, and others facing harassment, the group has decided to conceal their identities.
A jailed Mother Nature environmentalist and Khmer Thavrak activist appeared at the Appeal Court on Tuesday, where a judge denied requests to drop their cases or grant bail, while three female activists from the groups were unable to attend due to flooding in their prison.
Environmental group Mother Nature’s founder alleges that the advocacy group’s Facebook page was hijacked after authorities arrested three activists earlier this month, one of whom was a page administrator.
Three activists — including a monk — were arrested over two days at a series of small protests ongoing in Phnom Penh, with the Interior Ministry ordering action against two groups “causing chaos in society.”
Fifteen more hectares of one of Phnom Penh’s “last lakes” will be filled in to make way for government buildings, according to a decree signed two days before authorities arrested environmental youth activists campaigning for the lake’s preservation.
Members of the environmental group Mother Nature spent Thursday trying to trace the whereabouts of three of its prominent activists, who were arrested by Phnom Penh police in the middle of producing the group’s latest campaign video.
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