Villagers destroy gates at Ratanakkiri court

About 150 villagers, enraged by the conviction and imprisonment of three of their community representatives, yesterday destroyed the gates of Ratanakkiri Provincial Court, bursting into the courtroom only to find that the three men had already been sent to jail.

The representatives – Chroeung Touch, Em Chan and Sort Soeun – were sentenced to two years in jail over a land dispute case that pitted villagers from Bakeo district’s Keh Chung commune against Ministry of Interior immigration official Heng Socheat, who the villagers claim cleared hundreds of hectares of their land.

The villagers, who had accompanied their representatives to the provincial capital of Banlung expecting them to simply testify over the case, decided to push through the gates when no one emerged from the courtroom.

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