Human rights defenders and international agencies have broadly condemned a Cambodian court’s decision to sentence 10 environmental activists to six and eight years in prison for “plotting” against the state and/or lèse-majesté (defaming the king) earlier this month.
The case concerned Mother Nature Cambodia, an award-winning environmental group that successfully stopped Chinese-led construction of a hydroelectric dam in 2015 and managed to secure a ban on exporting coastal sand in 2016.
Dozens of rights groups in Cambodia and abroad maintain authorities charged the activists to stifle their environmental work.
Cambodian authorities dismissed criticism from the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the European Union and others that the defendants were convicted for their environmental activism.
“Their sentencing was based on sufficient facts and full legality, and that process was established through a clear investigation by authorities, which led to their conviction,” Chin Malin, secretary of state and spokesperson at the Ministry of Justice, said July 4.
That is false.
U.N. Human Rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said, “many aspects of the trial procedure” in the case against the activists may have failed to comply “with international human rights standards binding on Cambodia.”
Phil Robertson, the director of the Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates consultancy, told Polygraph.info that prosecutors and police “just made things up” to convict the activists, contending serious evidence is not necessary “when a political case reaches the courts in Cambodia,” as “the guilty judgment is already pre-ordained.”
That assessment tracks with a 2023 U.S. State Department human rights report, which said the Cambodian government generally did not respect judicial independence and impartiality, adding the country’s judicial branch could not ensure due process, fair trials or verdicts free from political influence.
Rights groups say authorities targeted the Mother Nature Cambodia activists for nearly a decade, with the charges against them referencing alleged acts committed between 2012 and 2021.
Authorities prosecuted the activists after an unidentified party allegedly hacked and recorded a May 2021 Zoom meeting of Mother Nature Cambodia members, which was then leaked to pro-government media, the International Federation of Human Rights said.
Amnesty International said that a 2015 law “permits the Cambodian government to undertake unfettered surveillance of digital communications in the absence of adequate safeguards and oversight,” violating “the right to privacy as guaranteed by international human rights law.”
The video clip was posted to a Facebook account called “Kamchatchunkbot,” meaning “defeat the traitor,” which prosecutors used as evidence that the activists intended to overthrow the government, CamboJA News reported.
Prosecutors contend that individuals participating in that meeting, specifically Spanish environmentalist Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, the co-founder of Mother Nature Cambodia who was deported from Cambodia in 2015, used language that insulted King Norodom Sihamoni and former Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Evidence presented in court included interviews Gonzalez-Davidson provided to VOA, VOA-sister organization Radio Free Asia (RFA) and other media criticizing Hun Sen, who ruled Cambodia for decades before his son Hun Manet took the helm last year.
Gonzalez-Davidson was denied the right to due process, as Cambodian authorities would not allow him to return to the country to stand trial.
Cambodia’s pro-government EAC News reported Gonzalez-Davidson said, “Api Sihamoni” during the zoom meeting, which it translated as “damn the king.”
Mu Sochua, president of the Khmer Movement for Democracy, disputes that.
“‘Api’ does not mean, even loosely, ‘damn the king.’ It is the equivalent to 'that guy,’” Sochua told Polygraph.info, noting that the other two activists sentenced for defaming the king did not use the term.
“They are pulling any ‘evidence’ they can find,” Sochua said, adding the case against the environmentalists would have been dismissed by “any independent court” due to the "many irregularities in the trial” and “the weak evidence.”
Yim Leanghy, who was sentenced to eight years in prison for “plotting” and lèse-majesté, said the court never provided evidence supporting his conviction on either charge.
Several members of Mother Nature Cambodia were first charged in 2021 after they documented waste run-off near the royal palace in the capital, Phnom Penh.
“The fact that the pollution into the river in Phnom Penh was near the palace was apparently enough to move towards a charge involving defamation of the king,” Robertson told Polygraph.info. “Once again, it's clear that in the hands of the Hun Manet government, the lèse-majesté law is being weaponized to attack freedom of expression.”