"Drop All Charges Against Mother Nature Activists, Release Imprisoned Rights Activists", 22 June 2021

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court … charged four members of the Mother Nature environmental movement with plotting an attack against the state and insulting the king, part of the targeted and outrageous persecution of frontline environmental defenders and grassroots activists by the government. Authorities should stop imprisoning and start listening to our youth activists who are on the front line of documenting the risks Cambodia faces from natural resource exploitation and environmental degradation...

We, the undersigned communities and civil society groups, demand the immediate release of the arrested environmental activists, dropping of all charges, and a halt to the relentless repression and prosecution of the environmental movement.

Sun Ratha, Yim Leanghy and Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson were charged with plotting and insulting the king (lèse majesté) under articles 453 and 437 (bis) of the Cambodian Criminal Code, which carry maximum prison sentences of 10 years and 5 years, respectively. A fourth activist, Ly Chandaravuth, was charged with plotting.

Three of the activists were sent to pre-trial detention in Phnom Penh’s Correctional Centers 1 and 2…

… Their arrests are unfounded and the charges are baseless, and are yet another example of the Cambodian government and judiciary using trumped-up charges to imprison young human rights defenders. Advocating for human rights and demanding that the authorities protect the environment are not crimes, and jailing the country’s future generation of environmental defenders imperils us all…

We demand that the members of the Mother Nature movement, and all environmental and human rights activists currently imprisoned, be released immediately and all charges against them dropped without condition.