An ADHOC monitoring staff member and three young activists, forming part of the Mother Nature movement, were detained and sent to Chamkarmon district authority in the early morning of 25 June 2015 in a crackdown by the district’s security forces.
Mr Dit Sokthy, a monitoring staff member for #Adhoc, were detained at the gate of the Phnom Penh Center at 8:40am and transported in a police pick up van with the other three Mother Nature activists. He was on duty to monitor the human rights situation and behavior of security forces, surrounding around 15 Mother Nature activists’ attempt at submitting a petition to parliament and to Singapore’s Embassy in Phnom Penh against the continuation of sand digging activities for the construction of Koh Kong’s Cheay Areng hydropower dam. .
“I told them [security forces] that I am a monitoring officer from #Adhoc, however, they did not listen and pushed me on the police van,” said Mr Sokthy. He was released from custody at 11:30am.
Those young activists were also released after interrogation; Mr Sokthy was, however, not interrogated.
Mr Sokthy added “a police officer wearing civil clothes asked me about my personal information and asked for my thumbprint, but I refused as I did nothing wrong.”
Their attempt to submit the petition failed after a large group of security forces cracked down the march near the gate of the Phnom Penh Center.
