Ekip
18 August 2016•Update: 18 August 2016
By Lauren Crothers
PHNIOM PENH
A Spanish academic was deported from Cambodia overnight Wednesday for participating in a protest calling for the release of two activists detained during a “Black Monday” protest.
The two members of the Boeung Kak land rights community, Tep Vanny and Bov Sophea, are part of a group that has been staging the protests since May, when four human rights defenders and an election official were imprisoned ahead of what critics say is a politically motivated trial.
Vanny and Sophea were arrested and detained Monday.
On Wednesday, according to the Phnom Penh Post, Vanny and Sophea were charged by a judge with “provocation to commit crimes” and they would be held until their fast-tracked trial continues next week.
Marga Bujosa Segado, a researcher who lived in the same community as the women, was initially detained by police Tuesday after she attended a protest outside a police station calling for the release of Vanny and Sophea, who were being held inside.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency from Bangkok on Thursday, Segado said her detention on Tuesday lasted nine hours and that she refused to sign a document that was written in Khmer.
“There they become aggressive and told me I have two options: Take a plane or sleep in a cell,” she said, adding that she asked to speak with a representative of the French Embassy, which handles the affairs of Spanish nationals in Cambodia, but claimed she was denied the phone call by Uk Heisela, the immigration department’s head of investigations.
She said she was released, but without her passport, which was kept by the authorities.
When she went to get it back on Wednesday, she was detained for a second time and told she was being deported for “joining the request for freedom.”
“The government is preparing the 2018 elections and destroying any opposition,” she claimed to Anadolu Agency.
“They do it not only without hiding from the international community, but with their funding. All the people watching at what happens in Cambodia nowadays and doing nothing is as responsible as the CPP government.”
Segado said she was en-route to Spain.
Heisela could not be reached Thursday, but had told the Post the deportation was approved because Segado did not have a work permit.
