Barricades led to chaos: NGOs
Following two dramatic incidents of violence in the capital on Sunday evening, rights groups yesterday pointed to heavy police blockades at dozens of streets around Phnom Penh, including at several city arteries, as being partly to blame. Clashes broke out at Sisowath Quay on Sunday afternoon when a group of protesters – some of whom were residents trying to return home, according to eyewitnesses – began forcibly dismantling police barricades in the face of massed riot police. Fighting that left one man dead and several seriously injured later that day at the Kbal Thnal overpass was sparked by protesters pulling down barricades and hurling rocks at police as hundreds unable to cross the flyover looked on. “I think there were two serious incidents yesterday … and [both of them] were around a roadblock,” Amnesty International’s Cambodia researcher Rupert Abbott said yesterday. …
Kevin Ponniah and Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/barricades-led-chaos-ngos
