DISACCORDS

Cambodia: Villagers blockade road to protest land grab

Ethnic Kuoy villagers in Preah Vihear province block Rui Feng trucks and machinery from travelling along a road earlier this week. Photo supplied

Ethnic Kuoy villagers in Preah Vihear province block Rui Feng trucks and machinery from travelling along a road earlier this week.

4 March – Following a two-day roadblock protest by residents of six villages in Preah Vihear province, district authorities have inspected land allegedly stolen by Chinese sugar cane producer Rui Feng.

Rui Feng was granted 8,841 hectares in a 2011 economic land concession (ELC), but ethnic Kuoy villagers allege that the company has been pushing the boundaries of its ELC and encroaching on their farmland.

Some 200 residents of six Kuoy-majority villages in Chey Sen and Chheb districts on Tuesday began to obstruct a road used by the sugar company, said Luot Sang, a land issues coordinator with NGO Ponlork Khmer, who was present.

Villager Huoth Maly, 35, said 500 hectares of farmland have been bulldozed by Rui Feng since 2013, despite some villagers possessing land titles.

“Some of our villagers’ farmland has a land title, but the company still bulldozes it to plant sugar,” Maly said. “If there is no solution, we pledge to conduct a bigger protest.” An official had threatened to send him to prison, he added..

Cambodia: Factory boss calls scuffle ‘murder attempt’

3 March – A boss at a garment factory in Kampong Chhnang province has accused the husband and a friend of a recently fired employee of chasing down her car and trying to kill her.

Thhey Kunthea, administrative chief of the Chinese-owned Horizon Outdoor garment factory, filed an attempted murder complaint at the provincial police station on Monday night against dismissed employee Som Chreum’s husband, Phon Vanna, 35, and friend Khem Chhoun, 47, according to provincial police chief Srey Sitha. Both are being held at provincial court.

Vanna and Chhoun had pursued Kunthea’s car on a motorbike until it became stuck in a traffic jam and then blocked its path, Sitha said.

“The men opened the door and took the administrative chief out of the car. So there was a physical argument,” he said. “Thhey Kunthea got injured on her arm and left-hand side.”

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Thailand: Cannery Row Strike Wins Pay Promise for Workers

26 Feb – A strike of more than 1,100 workers at a canned food factory southwest of Bangkok in Samut Sakhon province ended today with company executives agreeing to pay overtime and wages allegedly withheld from workers.

The strike, which began Thursday and mostly involved workers from Myanmar, was a rare victory in a country where migrant workers routinely suffer discrimination and harsh working conditions with little or no leverage.

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PNG: Police Shoot Dead 11 Prisoners Following Mass Breakout

26 Feb – More than 60 prisoners are still at large in Papua New Guinea following a mass breakout of 94 inmates in the Pacific nation’s second largest city on Thursday. Police shot and killed at least 11 prisoners and wounded at least 17.

Prisoners reportedly attacked two guards at the Buimo prison in Lae, a city of around 100,000 people located nearly 200 miles north of the country’s capital, Port Moresby. The injured were taken to nearby Angau hospital, with Australia’s ABC News reporting that four inmates are in critical condition.

“It is confirmed that 11 prisoners have been shot and killed and 17 wounded and recaptured,” Metropolitan Superintendent Anthony Wagambie told Papua New Guinea news outlet EMTV.

All of the prisoners involved were in pre-trial detention, according to ABC.

Papua New Guinea’s prison population of over 4,500 is around 93 percent of maximum capacity, with at least 35 percent of inmates held in pre-trial detention, according to the International Centre for Prisons Studies.

In 2009, 73 prisoners cut through two fences to escape from the same facility.

Papua New Guinea, formerly administered by its near-neighbor Australia, struggles with endemic violence and poverty. The Australian government warns of “high levels of serious crime” on its travel advice website and refers to a “general atmosphere of lawlessness.” Violence against women is also a particular problem.

Following a visit to the country in March 2015, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Christof Heyns expressed concerns about police use of excessive force during arrest, interrogation, and pre-trial detention, sometimes resulting in death.

According to the World Bank, Lae has a murder rate of 66 per 100,000 — higher than the country’s notoriously violent capital.

Auckland: No Pride in Prisons Protesters Bring Pride Parade to a Halt

21 Feb – No Pride in Prisons, a queer and transgender activist group managed to stop the Auckland Pride Parade from progressing. The group took this action in order to protest the inclusion of uniformed police and Corrections officers.

Approximately 300 protesters marched down Karangahape Road towards the Pride Parade. Faced with a police line, a handful of protesters broke through the line and managed to get onto the Parade ground.

This group stayed on the street for approximately an hour and a half and forced the Parade organisers to change the Parade route.

From there, a second group of protesters on the sidelines opened the barriers and rushed onto the road in front of the police float. The protesters then sat across the street, holding a banner reading “Queers Against Cops”.

This action follows the Auckland Pride Board’s decision to allow members of the police and the Department of Corrections to march in uniform in the parade.

“We took the actions we did in order to condemn the Auckland Pride Board’s decision to include violent, racist and transmisogynist institutions in its parade for the second year in a row,” says No Pride in Prisons spokesperson, Emilie Rākete.

“Given recent reports of racist police brutality and Corrections’ announcement to extend its ‘double-bunking’ policy, it is disgraceful that the Auckland Pride Board decided to include Corrections and police in the Pride Parade.”

“Corrections’ policies directly contribute to physical and sexual violence against trans and queer prisoners.”

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Ōtepoti (NZ): Queer anti-prison activists protest outside a National Party office

20 Feb – No Pride in Prisons Ōtepoti organised a small solidarity demonstration in the Upper Octagon today..

We stand with NPIP members up north today against the pinkwashing of Auckland Pride, in part by its own committee, and in condemnation of both the Department of Corrections and the New Zealand Police for their discriminatory, harmful and dangerous treatment of transgender prisoners.

Too many of our trans siblings have been lost in and to a dangerous system that ignores our basic human rights. The oppressors and abusers in that system do not deserve to march in Pride with us

#LetThemStay Fieldnotes 1

The Word From Struggle Street

The decision by the Lady Cilentro Children’s Hospital to not discharge the infant Nepalese refugee Asha back to Nauru and the emergence of a vigil in solidarity was an important and inspiring event. The experience of it was radically different from the protest-politics-as-usual that typify the activist repertoire in Brisbane. Now that Asha has been discharged into community detention, and is facing a very uncertain and probably deeply unpleasant future, there is a desire to make sense of what has happened, what is going on and what does it mean?

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