“Cambodia: Continued arbitrary detention and judicial harassment of Mr. Ven Vorn”, 19 Feb 2016

…The Observatory has been informed by reliable sources about the continued arbitrary detention and judicial harassment of Mr. Ven Vorn, an Areng Valley environmental activist and a community leader of the indigenous Chong minority in Koh Kong Province…

The Observatory strongly condemns the arbitrary detention of and judicial harassment against Mr. Ven Vorn, which only aims at sanctioning his legitimate human rights activities, and calls on the Cambodian authorities to release him immediately and unconditionally…

Both of the above-mentioned charges relate to the construction by Mr. Vorn and a group of local activists of a small visitor centre and community meeting place for local activists involved in a campaign against the proposed construction of a hydropower dam in the Areng Valley. According to activists and environmental groups, the hydropower dam poses a threat to their land, livelihood, and the natural environment. For this project, Mr. Vorn and others had purchased approximately 10 cubic metres of wood from a vendor in 2014, which authorities claimed had been procured by the vendor through illegal logging…