Document hunter wins human rights award

Youk Chhang remembers the first document he uncovered; it’s still sitting on his desk. Under a staircase in an old government building in the early 1980s, Chhang found a booklet spilling with testimonials, locations of mass graves and inked thumbprints details of the atrocities millions of Cambodians suffered under the Khmer Rouge regime.

The booklet was intended to go to the UN but never left the country, according to Chhang. Instead, it became the cornerstone of what is now the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), which boasts thousands upon thousands of documents and photographs.

Chhang, the centre’s director, is due to receive a prestigious human rights award in San Francisco today in recognition of his efforts to chronicle the Kingdom’s dark past.

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