Six environmental activists have been released from police custody in Cambodia on Monday after they were detained over the weekend for trespassing in the Vern Sai Siem Reap National Park.

This comes following the detention of Ouch Leng, Prum Mao, Mon Mab, Ot Latin, Tat Udom, and Heng Sros near Talat commune, Sesan district, Stung Treng province, near the National Park. The activists were detained and moved to the provincial police headquarters and questioned by officials until Sunday. According to government spokesman Men Kung, the six were freed after signing a promise not to enter a prohibited zone again and said that they would face prosecution if they trespassed again. The activists responded that they were merely conducting investigations into illegal logging in the national park. This comes following the granting of an Economic Land Concession to a company named T.S.M.W LTD in 2022, violating its own 2012 moratorium. Concerns have been raised with the granting of these concessions, including reports from the UNHRC that Indigenous communities and wildlife have been disproportionately affected. 

According to commentary provided to the Khmer Daily by the chairman of the People’s Forum, Kim Sok, the arrest of the activist for trespassing was illegitimate, and apart from strategic military regions, there is no precedence for the government preventing access to national parks.

This is not the first time that Leng has drawn the ire of the Cambodian government, and he was arrested in 2021 in the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary 2021 while he was investigating illegal timber harvesting. 

These arrests occurred as the Cambodian government has begun crackdowns on environmentalists and activists, including the arrest of 94 people expressing public criticism of the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Area, the imprisonment of ten “Mother Nature” activists for “plotting” and “insulting the King.”