Cambodia fronts UN torture commission

Monday, 08 November 2010

By Chhay Channyda and James O’Toole
Phnom Penh Post

Photo by: Heng Chivoan
A guard looks out from a watchtower over Prey Sar prison.Five days after being arrested and charged with robbery, Heng Touch was sent to Prey Sar prison.

When his mother and brother visited him the next month, they learned that he had fallen ill; guards recommended that he be transferred out of his overcrowded cell, but demanded US$200 in exchange. The family could not afford to pay, and on a return visit, after learning that Heng Touch’s condition had worsened, his mother discovered bruises on his head, face and limbs and cuts on his tongue.

Heng Touch’s mother paid $30 to have him transferred to Monivong Hospital, where he later told her he had been viciously beaten by five men, sustaining lung damage and a fractured skull. Little more than six weeks after being incarcerated, Heng Touch died at Calmette Hospital.

This 2008 incident is documented in a report that was compiled by local rights groups ahead of Cambodia’s appearance today before the United Nations Committee Against Torture in Geneva, and the problems it illustrates – prison overcrowding, impunity for law enforcement, a lack of recourse for alleged torture victims – are sure to be high on the committee’s agenda.

“The situation of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in Cambodia is still of concern,” the rights groups said in a joint statement yesterday. “The country’s legal and judicial system is unable to effectively prevent and punish acts of torture.”

Cambodia ratified the UN Convention Against Torture in 1992, but is up for only its second review before the committee; the last was in 2002....read the full story in tomorrow’s Phnom Penh Post or see the updated story online from 3PM UTC/GMT +7 hours.