Associated Press
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Four Cambodian women imprisoned
for protesting their eviction from the land where their homes once stood
have begun a hunger strike, a rights group said Monday.
They are among 13 women sentenced last month by a Phnom Penh court to
two and half years in prison for aggravated rebellion and illegal
occupation of land. They claimed the government broke promises to give
them new land.
The women were arrested when they tried to rebuild their homes on the
land where their houses were demolished by developers in 2010. They
lived in Phnom Penh’s Boueng Kak lake area, which the government awarded
to a Chinese company to develop a hotel, office buildings and luxury
houses.
The Housing Rights Task Force said the four women began a hunger strike on Sunday to demand their immediate release.
In Cambodia, land grabbing is sometimes linked to corruption and the use of deadly force.
Long Kim Heang, a communications officer for the Housing Rights Task
Force, said the group learned of the hunger strike from relatives of the
strikers who visit them almost every day.
However, an officer at Prey Sar prison where the women are being
held, said the woman are eating normally and not on a hunger strike. The
prison officer spokes anonymously because he is not authorized to speak
to the media.
Since their eviction, the women had protested
persistently, though public dissent is discouraged under the government
of Prime Minister Hun Sen. Their families and neighbors have held
several demonstrations of support for them.
On Monday, about 100 of them demonstrated in front of the Royal
Palace to urge King Norodom Sihamoni to help obtain the release of the
women. Their petition was accepted by a palace official, but any
subsequent action was unknown.
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