Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

In Cambodia, UN's Ban Silent as Petitioner Beaten, “Undesirables” Jailed with UN Money

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 28 -- In Cambodia, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said through his spokesman Martin Nesirky that he was open to receiving written communications from protesters. But when Suong Sophorn, 23, sought to deliver a petition to Ban, he was beaten unconscious by military police.

Inner City Press, whose question about Thailand banning all political gathering gave rises to Nesirky's statement about receiving petitions in Cambodia, asked on October 28 about the beating.

Nesirky said grandly that “generally” the UN “supports the right to free assembly and protest.”

But it is now reported that the UN system has funded secret detention centers to which “undesirable” including alleged drug addicts have been taken, without charge, to be beaten, raped and even killed.

These violent anti-drugs centers have been raised to Ban Ki-moon, both by the UN's own Special Rapporteur on Health and, twice, by Inner City Press.

Protesters beaten in Cambodia, Ban Ki-moon not shown

 But it appears Ban has not raised the center on any of this stops, in Vietnam or Cambodia. Watch this site.

Footnote: while Ban himself had nothing to say, Nesirky made much of statements by the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights. In other circumstances, the Secretariat argues that the High Commissioner's Office is independent. But while these statements are duly noted, Ban's own silence speaks volumes.

From the UN transcript of October 25, 2010 --

Inner City Press: I want to ask about the Secretary-General’s impending trip to Asia. There is a report to the Third Committee by the Special Rapporteur on the right to health about, among other things, what he sees as the violated practices in anti-drug programmes in many of the countries that Ban Ki-moon is going to be visiting — Cambodia, Viet Nam, Thailand — and he calls very strongly for the UN to move against people who are incarcerated. This is all according to his report. I just wonder: of the many issues obviously on the Secretary-General’s agenda as he visits these countries, is he aware of that? And there is a separate issue in Cambodia, where people has said that they are going to try and rally in front of Ban Ki-moon about evictions, forced evictions, in Cambodia. Are these… Can you sort of… Can we get a run-down of what issues he is planning to raise, and I just wonder whether these two are among them?

Spokesperson Martin Nesirky: Sure. And again, I seem to recall that Farhan gave you a bit of a run-down on the trip last week, sitting here. As the trip progresses, we will be giving details. The Secretary-General and his delegation are en route at the moment to Thailand where, as you know, the visit starts. They then move to Cambodia and on to Viet Nam for this UN-ASEAN [Association of South-East Asian Nations] meeting and then to China, where, as you know, the Secretary-General will be visiting Shanghai, Nanjing and Beijing. On the question of health, the very specific point that you raised, we can find out and probably tell you as the visit progresses. The same goes for the second part that you mentioned.

* * *