Boeung Kak Lake Evictions
A group of women known as the "Boeung Kak 13" was arrested in May 2012 while protesting forced eviction from a poor village community surrounding what used to be the Boeung Kak Lake in central Phnom Penh. The women were initially sentenced to jail but later released following an international outcry. Some 20,000 residents were living in their neighborhood when a China-Cambodia joint venture Shukaku Inc. was granted a 99-year lease in 2007 to turn the area into a luxury residential development. Protests have escalated since the company began filling the lake with sand in 2008, flooding their homes.
Boeung Kak Lake Evictions
A group of women known as the "Boeung Kak 13" was arrested in May 2012 while protesting forced eviction from a poor village community surrounding what used to be the Boeung Kak Lake in central Phnom Penh. The women were initially sentenced to jail but later released following an international outcry. Some 20,000 residents were living in their neighborhood when a China-Cambodia joint venture Shukaku Inc. was granted a 99-year lease in 2007 to turn the area into a luxury residential development. Protests have escalated since the company began filling the lake with sand in 2008, flooding their homes.
Borei Keila Evictions
Riot police used tear gas and rubber bullets to evict hundreds of families excluded from an on-site resettlement agreement in Borei Keila in Phnom Penh on January 2012. The area was slated for development in 2003, when under a "land-sharing agreement" hailed as model, local company Phanimex agreed to provide new housing in Borei Keila for the 1,776 families displaced by the commercial real estate project. But Phanimex stopped after building eight of the 10 proposed housing blocks, leaving 300 families out. Hundreds of families have been moved to two makeshift settlements miles outside the city that lack clean water and electricity.
Chut Wutty's Death
Environmental activist Chut Wutty was gunned down in April 2012 while investigating illegal logging operations in southern Cambodia's Koh Kong province. Conflicting accounts given about the circumstances of his death sparked accusations of a government cover-up. The activist was also involved in organizing communities in the Cardamom Mountains to protect the forest from land grabs and illegal logging and had campaigned against the government's granting of land concessions in national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.
Avatar Activists
Land disputes have spurred the rise of activism in central Cambodia's Prey Lang area, which hosts Southeast Asia's largest lowland evergreen forest. Villagers have organized community patrols to check illegal logging and combat other abuses which they say stem from government-linked concessions for opening up rubber plantations and mineral extraction. Inspired by the Hollywood movie Avatar, the villagers staged high-profile protests calling for better protection of land and natural resources.
Kratie Land Revolt
Fifteen-year-old Heng Chentha was shot dead in May 2012 in northeastern Cambodia's Kratie province after authorities sent a large number of military personnel supported by helicopters to her Broma village in Chhlong district to evict thousands of villagers from an area earmarked for private development. Over 1,000 families had refused to relocate from the 15,000 hectares (58 square miles) of land which had been granted in a concession to Russian company Casotim. Authorities claimed the land revolt was part of a "secession" plot led by prominent activist Mam Sonando, who was ordered jailed for 20 years.