PHNOM PENH (AFP) – A Cambodian court yesterday sentenced 10 environmentalists to between six and eight years in jail for plotting to commit crimes in their activism – the latest legal crackdown on the country’s green campaigners.
The activists from Mother Nature, one of Cambodia’s few environmental advocacy groups, denied the charges, which they said were politically motivated.
Operations director of rights group LICADHO Am Sam Ath told AFP the court sentenced the activists to jail terms ranging from six to eight years.
He said three of them – including Mother Nature co-founder Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, a Spaniard deported from Cambodia in 2015 – were sentenced to eight years for plotting against the government and insulting the king.
Seven others were sentenced to six years in prison on unspecified plotting charges.
Six of the defendants were sentenced in absentia, while the four who were present were seized by police outside the court and taken away, according to an AFP journalist.
Ahead of the verdict the four activists and a few dozen supporters had marched to the court in a mock funeral procession, wearing white, a colour of mourning.
“We cannot see the justice anywhere because we did not do anything wrong,” Mother Nature member Phuon Keoraksmey, 23, told reporters outside the Phnom Penh court.
The group were just young people working for social justice and to “protect natural resources”, she added.
Am Sam Ath of LICADHO said the verdict was “very disappointing”.
