One Defendant Misidentified; Child Treated as an Adult
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Cambodian security forces open fire during unrest on November 12, 2014.
© 2014 LICADHO
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Cambodian security forces confront residents during unrest on November 12, 2014.
© 2014 LICADHO
The Cambodian authorities should be prosecuting the unnecessary use of lethal force by security forces instead of trying to convict a misidentified young man and a teenage boy with a disability. Once again in Phnom Penh, the wrong people are in the dock, and the security forces who provoked the violence enjoy impunity for killing and wounding people with indiscriminate gunfire. - Brad Adams, Asia director
(Bangkok) – The trial of a young man and
teenaged boy arrested during the Cambodian government’s suppression of a
demonstration in Phnom Penh is deeply flawed and should not result in
prison sentences, Human Rights Watch said today.
The arrests were in connection to the violent crackdown by police and
gendarmes on a protest by garment workers on November 12, 2013. Vanny
Vannan, age 18 or 19, is a deliveryman for building materials who
appears to have been mistakenly identified. Meas Nun, a 14- or
15-year-old refuse collector, is a child living with intellectual
disability who has not been given the protections due to children under
international law. No charges are known to have been filed against any
security force members in connection with their unjustified use of live
fire during the demonstration that led to one fatality.
“The Cambodian authorities should be prosecuting the unnecessary use
of lethal force by security forces instead of trying to convict a
misidentified young man and a teenage boy with a disability,” said Brad Adams,
Asia director. “Once again in Phnom Penh, the wrong people are in the
dock, and the security forces who provoked the violence enjoy impunity
for killing and wounding people with indiscriminate gunfire.”
Background to the Trial of Vanny Vannan and Meas Nun
On November 12, 2013, hundreds of workers from the SL garment factory
on the outskirts of Phnom Penh attempted to march to the downtown
residence of Prime Minister Hun Sen to demand better pay and working
conditions.
The Phnom Penh Municipality Unified Command Committee, chaired by
Phnom Penh Governor Pa Socheatevong, ordered city police and fire
brigade contingents to block the workers’ path. The committee, which
oversees all security forces in the capital, positioned these blocking
forces in front of Steung Meanchey pagoda on Monireth Boulevard.
Numerous Cambodian and foreign journalists and human rights
observers, as well as Cambodian government intelligence officers,
monitored the incident. Human Rights Watch reviewed video taken by these
sources and talked to witnesses to reconstruct what happened.
When the workers pushed up against the police line across Monireth
Boulevard, fire trucks behind the police turned on their water cannons,
forcing the workers to withdraw along the street. However, when the
water ran out, the workers resumed their movement up the road, many of
them throwing stones and forcing the police and fire brigade to
withdraw. These security forces eventually regrouped and moved back down
Monireth Boulevard. Police officers fired pistols into the air but also
in the direction of the dispersing crowd. By this point, some
residents, particularly young men pouring out of Steung Meanchey pagoda,
had joined in the rock-throwing and eventually torched four police
vehicles in front of the pagoda. One contingent of police chased youths
into the pagoda, beating and kicking several. Municipal gendarmes later
arrived to help the police secure the area. While so doing, the police
and gendarme randomly beat many more young men in the area with
truncheons.
Security force gunfire killed one person and wounded nine others.
Beatings resulted in injuries to at least 26 other people. The use of
force, particularly lethal force, by the security forces was excessive
and in violation of international law. While police and fire brigade
officers sustained injuries from rocks, there is no evidence that when
they opened fire that they or anyone else was at imminent risk of death
or serious injury.
While police mostly fired teargas and smoke grenades on Monireth
Boulevard or into Steung Meanchey pagoda, video evidence and witnesses
interviewed by Human Rights Watch indicate that pistol fire directed by a
few police officers down the street hit six people in it or alongside
it, some up to 100 meters away, including a roadside food vendor, Eng
Sokhom, who died from her wounds.
Three other people were wounded by shots fired by a police officer
who had pursued youths into Steung Meanchey pagoda. He, along with four
fellow policemen and two intelligence officers, became temporarily
surrounded in the building by some of the youths they had been chasing
and beating. Human rights workers then attempted to negotiate with a
senior police commander outside the pagoda and the youths inside to
secure safe exit from the building for the seven security personnel.
However, after the youths began to give way, the senior police commander
ordered the police on the outside to storm the pagoda, and one of the
seven shot his way out of the pagoda grounds. One of the three shooting
victims, Hoeun Chan, is now permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
Judicial Proceedings Against Vanny Vannan and Meas Nun
The trial against Vanny Vannan and Meas Nun was marred by procedural
problems that bring into question its fairness. The judge was openly
hostile to the two accused, their defense lawyers, and two exculpatory
witnesses. He refused to allow a defense lawyer to introduce potentially
exculpatory video evidence at the final hearing, declaring that to do
so could threaten “public order in the courtroom.”
In addition to the criminal charges, 14 police and fire brigade
officers have sued Vanny Vannan and Meas Nun for up to US$50,000 each in
damages for injuries allegedly suffered during the unrest. In their
testimony as civil parties in the case, the officers’ accounts of the
events have been at great variance with video footage taken during the
confrontation and other evidence.
The officers testified that there was no confrontation with the SL
garment factory workers and omitted any mention of the use of force by
security forces. Instead, they stated that while they were peacefully
dealing with the workers, they were attacked in a highly organized,
premeditated assault by a group of “anarchists” who launched a surprise
rock-throwing attack on them from “their flanks,” that is, along the
sides of Monireth Boulevard.
Police and fire brigade officers testified to seeing Vanny Vannan
throwing rocks at them as part of the initial attack on their group.
They also testified that he was throwing rocks at them from the
perimeter of Steung Meanchey pagoda before they entered it, and that he
was involved in torching police vehicles.
While Vannan says he was in the Steung Meanchey area during the
incident, the video evidence contradicts claims that he was involved in
the alleged criminal acts. The first security force allegation against
him is contradicted by video evidence taken at the precise place and at
the precise moment of the purported flank attack, which simply did not
happen. The second two police claims are contradicted by video evidence
that shows two different people dressed somewhat similarly to Vannan
throwing rocks and setting fire to a vehicle. Comparison of these images
to film taken of Vannan when he was taken into custody by Phnom Penh
Municipal Police Commissioner Chuon Sovan show that he is neither of
these other two people. Two police officers who are not party to the
case and have viewed the video evidence told Human Rights Watch that
they agree with this conclusion. It therefore appears that he has been
misidentified as the perpetrator of acts committed by different
individuals.
The case against Meas Nun raises due process concerns given that he
is a child but he has not been treated as such under Cambodian law. A
medical expert report by a nongovernmental doctor presented to the court
by his defense lawyers describes him as having epilepsy and a “minor
intellectual disability.” He is seen in a video attempting to salvage
scrap metal from the burnt-out hulk of a motorbike, unsurprising since
he makes his living as a collector of street refuse, but there is no
video or other evidence that he set fire to any vehicle. He admitted to
having thrown some rocks during the incident, while maintaining that he
hit nothing with them, and said he knew throwing rocks was wrong.
The Rights of the Child and Persons with Disabilities
Cambodia has ratified
the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The CRC calls upon countries to
establish laws, procedures, authorities, and institutions specifically
applicable to children alleged to having violated the penal law.
Imprisonment of children should be used only as a matter of last resort,
and for the shortest appropriate time, to achieve the goal of
rehabilitating the child.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, which monitors compliance with the CRC, expressed concern
in 2010 that there are no children’s courts or specialized judges or
prosecutors in children’s rights in Cambodia. The Committee also noted
that Cambodian children are often sentenced as adults by the courts,
including in cases where they are charged alongside adults with
aggravated crimes, and that alternatives in Cambodian law to detention
of children are rarely used.
The Committee called on Cambodia to “promote alternative measures to
detention, such as diversion, probation, counselling, community service
or suspended sentences,” citing the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the
Administration of Juvenile Justice adopted by the UN General Assembly.
Under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the
courts should adopt procedural and age-appropriate accommodations in all
legal proceedings to enable people with disabilities to participate
fully, whether as a witness or defendant. In the case of people with
intellectual disabilities, especially children, the courts should employ
special measures to enable and improve their participation in the
judicial process. This also involves training of law enforcement and
legal professionals in respectfully communicating and interacting with
persons with disabilities.
Should the evidence warrant Meas Nun’s conviction, any sentence
should take into account his age and disability, among other factors,
and result in the application of a UN-recommended alternative to a
custodial sentence.
“The Steung Meanchey case is another test of whether Cambodia’s
courts are places of justice,” Adams said. “Cambodia’s donors should use
their enormous leverage effectively to insist that the government not
continue to use the judiciary to commit injustices and reinforce the
impunity of abusive security forces.”
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