CCHR MEDIA COMMENT – 3 January 2013
CCHR commends Appeal Court for overturning guilty verdict for Phlong
Srey Rann
The Cambodian Center for Human
Rights (“CCHR”) commends the decision by the Appeal Court on 31 December 2012 to
overturn the Phnom Penh Municipal Court’s 2011 guilty verdict for Phlong SreyRann. Srey Rann, a lesbian, was accused of illegal detention and human
trafficking by her girlfriend’s family and sentenced to five years in prison in
November 2011 after being convicted on charges of statutory rape. However, it
is widely believed that the documents provided by the family claiming that the
girl was only 14 years old were falsified and that the family pressed charges
because they objected to their daughter being in a same-sex relationship. The
Appeal Court overturned the verdict based on a lack of evidence proving that
the girl was underage.
The decision by the Appeal Court
to overturn the guilty verdict is a positive sign and demonstrates that the
Cambodian judiciary can be impartial and independent. Furthermore, this case
marks the first time that a Cambodian court has recognized a same-sex
relationship. CCHR hopes that this will
contribute towards increasing public acceptance of the lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender (“LGBT”) community in Cambodia and towards decreasing
discrimination against LGBT people in all sectors of Cambodian society.
CCHR Project Coordinator Theng Nan
comments:
“The Appeal Court’s decision is a positive sign, both for the Cambodian judicial
system and for the LGBT community in Cambodia. I hope that this decision will send a strong message that same-sex
couples in Cambodia deserve recognition and that the Cambodian judicial system
will not perpetuate discrimination against the LGBT community.”
For more
information, please contact Theng Nan via telephone at +855 (0) 12 48 88 98 or
e-mail at chamnan@cchrcambodia.org or CCHR Consultant Juliette Rousselot
via telephone at +855 (0) 15 35 06 20 or e-mail at julietterousselot@
Please also find this Media Comment attached in PDF in Khmer and English.
CCHR
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