Released Boeng Kak Women Back to Old Ways
Less than two weeks after being released from prison, the 13 women convicted in May for protesting evictions at Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community staged their first public action yesterday. The women, joined by about as many neighbors, submitted petitions to the Australian, French, U.K. and U.S. embassies, making good on their vow the day after their release on June 27 to keep up their protests against the evictions. The petitions ask the embassies to urge the city to demarcate a 12.44-hectare area of Boeng Kak the government excluded from the neighborhood’s development by CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin’s private firm so that residents could receive their long-awaited land titles. About 90 families claim they have been unfairly excluded from the area, which has never been outlined on the ground. …
