- Cambodia insists five environmental activists jailed in 2024 will remain behind bars, after a U.N. working group called their detention arbitrary and urged their immediate release.
- The five members of Mother Nature Cambodia were sentenced to six to eight years in prison for allegedly plotting against the government.
- The U.N. working group found no legal basis for their detention and said their prosecution and trial violated their rights, including through discriminatory treatment and a lack of a fair trial.
- Cambodian officials maintain the activists were detained through lawful judicial proceedings, while rights advocates say the case reflects a broader government crackdown on environmental defenders.
CHIANG MAI, Thailand — The Cambodian government has defended its continued imprisonment of five environmental activists, after the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared the five had been arbitrarily detained and called for their immediate release.
The activists, from environmental group Mother Nature Cambodia, have since 2024 been serving prison sentences of between six and eight years for allegedly plotting against the government.
In a 16-page opinion published in February, the U.N. working group said it had found that the imprisonment of Long Kuntha, 28, Ly Chandaravuth, 26, Phuon Keoraksmey, 25, Thun Ratha, 34 and Yim Leanghy, 37, met the conditions for arbitrary detention on the grounds that there was no legal basis for the arrests. It said authorities had targeted the activists for exercising their fundamental freedoms, making the detention discriminatory and resulting in severe violations of their right to a fair trial.
The opinion asked Cambodia to take immediate action on the matter in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the latter of which Cambodia ratified in 1992, and to provide evidence of having done so within six months. Contacted by Mongabay in August, six months since the working group’s findings, a government spokesperson said the activists would remain behind bars.
“I have no comment on [the working group’s] rulings against us as all detentions have been made under legal and judicial proceeding,” Chan Rothona, spokesperson for Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said in a written message.
Rothona added the government had submitted a response to the working group on Aug. 4 and sent a photo of the response’s cover page to prove it. However, he declined to share the document in full or answer further questions on the government’s intentions.
“If you were Cambodia, how [would] you proceed [in] this case and how [would] the rule of law … be[?]” he wrote in a message.
He directed Mongabay to review Article 7 of the 1993 Cambodian Constitution, which states that the King of Cambodia shall reign but not govern, will be the head of state for life, and is considered inviolable.
The secretariat of the U.N. working group told Mongabay in an email that any updates to the Mother Nature Cambodia case would be included in the forthcoming annual report to the U.N. Human Rights Council. But these reports are typically published in July, suggesting any update may be published next year.
In their opinion, the working group said the Cambodian Criminal Code provisions used to prosecute the activists were so “vague and overbroad … as to invite abuse and misuse” by authorities, and that the “Mother Nature Five’s detention therefore cannot be considered to be prescribed by law.”
The opinion went on to state that the Cambodian government has “provided no concrete evidence or examples” to justify the arrests and that “the Working Group wishes to emphasize that no trial should have taken place.”
The trial itself was brief, consisting of five hearings lasting roughly 22 hours, and with only half of the defendants in attendance and neither the press nor public, including family members of the activists, allowed in court. Their continued detention, the working group said, was made on “discriminatory grounds, on the basis of their political opinions and their status as human rights defenders.”
Cambodia’s clampdown on environmentalism draws criticism
Mother Nature Cambodia has become one of the longest-functioning and most popular environmental activism groups in the country, winning international awards by drawing attention to environmental damage from land grabs, hydropower dams, sand mining, river contamination, and illegal logging, as well as the corruption that drives it.
In turn, this has put the group in the crosshairs of a government that, for more than 38 years, was headed by Hun Sen, who ruled through violent suppression of anyone who resembled opposition. His reign was supported by a network of patronage among the business, political and military elite, which drew much of its wealth — and subsequent power — from control of land and natural resources, rendering Cambodia an especially dangerous country for environmental defenders.
Their activism has seen Mother Nature Cambodia members jailed before, the group’s founder deported and banned from Cambodia, with some of those currently serving prison sentences already repeat offenders due to the Cambodian government’s persistently aggressive approach to environmentalism. The five Mother Nature Cambodia activists were sentenced after Hun Sen orchestrated a dynastic handover to his eldest son — U.S.-educated former Cambodian military chief Hun Manet — under whose stewardship the trend of silencing dissent linked to environmental issues has continued.
“This UN decision proves everything the [Mother Nature Cambodia Five] and their lawyers have been saying all along about the political witch-hunt cooked up against them by Hun Sen, Hun Manet and the Cambodian government,” said Phil Robertson, director of Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates.
“Put simply, every aspect of the criminal case and court proceedings against Mother Nature Cambodia was rotten to the core,” he added. “But the court didn’t care because they had obviously received political orders to ensure a conviction no matter what.”
The U.N. working group’s decision has, according to Robertson, put the ball in the court of Hun Manet, as well as every diplomat and U.N. official engaged with Cambodia, with pressure mounting ahead of the Francophonie Summit being held in Phnom Penh in November 2026 for the government to release the activists.
But whether the designation of the Mother Nature Cambodia Five as arbitrarily detained will alter government policy remains to be seen.
“The UN human rights system does not have direct enforcement powers,” said Matilda Bogner, country representative in Cambodia for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, adding the working group will continue to monitor the situation and coordinate with other U.N. human rights mechanisms.
“As the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia,” she said in an email, “we continue to seek the release of all individuals who have been found by UN human rights mechanisms to have been arbitrarily detained.”
Banner image:Ly Chandaravuth, then 24, addresses supporters before the court issued a verdict on July 2, 2024. Image courtesy of Licadho.
Cite this article
Gerald Flynn (2026). Cambodia defies UN call to free ‘arbitrarily jailed’ environmental activists. Mongabay Conservation news. DOI: https://doi.org/10.66709/news-327551
