A woman wearing a helmet tries to stop a bulldozer as her daughter attempts to stop her, during the eviction of slum dwellers in Phnom Penh January 24, 2009. Cambodian police fired teargas and eight people were injured on Saturday during the forced eviction of 80 families from a Phnom Penh slum, rights activists and police said. At least two of the eight slum dwellers were seriously hurt in clashes with clean-up crews hired to tear down the dwellings on government land recently sold to a private company.
REUTERS/Stringer (CAMBODIA)Wednesday, January 28, 2009
PHNOM PENH: The violent eviction of about 150 families from a slum in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh was an abuse of the country's law, the United Nations human rights agency said Wednesday.
Authorities used tear gas, rubber bullets and batons to evict residents from Dey Krohom slum Sunday after they failed to reach a deal to sell their property to a construction company planning to build a business centre on the site.
A statement by the Cambodian office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said the eviction was "a breach of residents' right to their land" and "abuse of the land law."
"All families were brutally taken out of their houses and those who resisted and attempted to protect their property were beaten and pulled away," the UN human rights office said.
"This is the latest in a far too long series of violent evictions in the capital," it added.
The Cambodian government is facing mounting criticism for forced evictions throughout the country at the hands of army and police, which have increased as land prices have risen over the past few years.
Last year over 20,000 people were reported affected by forced evictions from their homes, according to human rights groups Amnesty International.
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