CIVICUS discusses environmental activism in Cambodia’s heavily repressed civic space with Naly Pilorge, Outreach Director of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (LICADHO). LICADHO is a civil society organisation (CSO) that works with communities and activists to monitor, investigate and document civic space restrictions and human rights abuses in Cambodia.
On 2 July, a Cambodian court sentenced 10 activists from the Mother Nature movement to between six and eight years in prison and heavy fines for allegedly ‘plotting’ and ‘insulting the King’. Mother Nature works to defend and protect Cambodia’s natural resources and people’s environmental rights, and has angered the authorities by exposing the links between environmental degradation and government corruption. Its work was recognised with the 2023 Right Livelihood award, but the court stopped several of those facing criminal charges travelling to Sweden to receive the prize.
Why has Mother Nature been targeted by the authorities?
Mother Nature focuses on protecting Cambodia’s remaining natural resources. Activists use direct action to raise awareness and pressure the authorities to protect the country’s national parks, forests and islands. It has been very effective in drawing public attention to important environmental issues, and has even had some success in getting the government to reverse some of its more outrageous concessions and giveaways to private interests.
In the process, it has made powerful enemies within the state. Unfortunately, in Cambodia, the more effective your activism, the more likely you are to be targeted by a government that doesn’t see dissent as legitimate and won’t accept those who contradict it or cause it to lose face. That’s why the 10 activists were charged with the outrageous crime of conspiracy against the state and given such disproportionate sentences – six to eight years in prison for their peaceful activism. These sentences should serve as a sobering reminder and deter others from doing the same.
What are the conditions for civil society in Cambodia?
In Cambodia, people’s ability to exercise their fundamental civic freedoms of association, expression and peaceful assembly depends on the whims of the government, which sometimes allows a bit more space but often heavily restricts it. It usually does this by routinely misusing criminal legislation enacted for other purposes to undermine and weaken civil society and criminalise human rights defenders, trade unionists, youth activists, journalists and other critical voices.
If activists can get long prison sentences for testing polluted river water, advocating against deforestation or calling for the preservation of the capital’s remaining lakes, it means any meaningful activism entails immense personal risk.
So, this isn’t just about Mother Nature or even about environmental activism. All human rights defenders, including environmental activists, face an impossible situation as repression intensifies.
Fortunately, while harsh punishments for peaceful environmental activism may have a short-term chilling effect, in the long term, repression is doomed to fail. The courage of the young activists targeted will also inspire a new generation of young human rights defenders.
How has Cambodian civil society responded to the convictions, and what support from the international community does it need?
Civil society was angered and appalled by the unfounded convictions and issued statements condemning the sentences, the violent arrests of five of the convicted activists and the cruel and inhumane decision to split them into five separate prisons, mostly located in rural areas, in some cases hundreds of kilometres from their families. Their sentencing and ill treatment was seen as an all-out attack on civil society as a whole.
To help build greater respect for human rights and democratic freedoms in our country, we need everyone to stop pretending things are normal in Cambodia. Too many people are wilfully ignoring the fact that an already bad situation has deteriorated sharply over the past year. Cambodian people need new strategies, new tactics and meaningful responses from the institutions that claim to be our international partners.
Civic space in Cambodia is rated ‘repressed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with LICADHO through its website