An international human rights group called on the Cambodian government yesterday to shut down its drug detention centers alleging abuses such as torture and rape, as well as the lockup of children and the mentally ill.
In a 93-page report, New York-based Human Rights Watch detailed examples of detainees being beaten with electric wire, raped by drug center staff, shocked with electric batons and coerced into giving blood. Some Cambodian families paid to send their relatives to the locked-down centers, where detainees undergo military-style drills to sweat out the drugs in their systems to “cure” their addiction, the report said.
Government data shows more than 2,300 people were detained in Cambodia’s 11 drug detention centers in 2008, a 40 percent increase from a year earlier.
“The bottom line really is that these centers operate outside any judicial oversight and outside of any monitoring,” said Joe Amon, director of Human Rights Watch’s health and human rights division in Bangkok. “We’re sending a message that these centers need to be shut down.”
Cambodian Brigadier General Roth Srieng, commander of the military police in Banteay Meanchy Province, denied torture at his center but said some detainees were forced to stand in the sun or “walk like monkeys” as punishment.
Cambodian officials from the National Authority for Combatting Drugs, Interior Ministry, National Police and Social Welfare Ministry declined to comment.
Amon said the centers that operate in several Asian countries do nothing to help detainees overcome drug addictions and the relapse rate upon release remains high.
About one-fourth of those detained at Cambodia’s centers in 2008 were 18 years or younger, with 5 percent classified as “street children,” government data shows.
These children along with prostitutes, beggars, the homeless and the mentally ill, are often rounded up and taken to drug centers, the Human Rights Watch report said. Most detainees were not told why they were being held or given access to a lawyer, it said.
The report also said police demanded money or sex for release in some cases, and told some detainees they could leave early or would not be beaten if they donated blood.
The report relied on interviews from last February to July with 74 informants, most of whom were drug addicts who had been through treatment in government centers.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture was made aware of the allegations in 2008 and has addressed them in a report to Cambodia’s government that will be published soon, said Claudia de la Fuente, an official with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in