Groups Want Prosecutions in Timber Crackdown

A truck carries logs on a rural road is seen in Preah Vihear province some 245 kilometers (152 miles) north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Rights groups on Friday praised the government for a recent crackdown on illegal logging.

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh
Friday, 09 April 2010

Rights groups on Friday praised the government for a recent crackdown on illegal logging but said they want those arrested in the ongoing operation to be prosecuted without political bias.

Arrests are continuing in a sweep of border provinces where illegal logging still takes place, and Prime Minister Hun Sen sacked the head of the government’s forestry administration earlier this week.

But members of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee told reporters Friday Cambodia still lacks the proper law enforcement and management to conserve what is left of the country’s forests.

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