Comrade Duch Set for Trial; Chinese Activist Still Missing

By: Angela Lohman
Impunity Watch, Administrative Editor 

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – Former Cambodian prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Comrade Duch, will be the first person to go on trial in Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge tribunal.

Eav faces charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes for his involvement in running Tuol Sleng prison, where detainees were tortured and executed. As many as two million people are thought to have died during the four years of Khmer Rouge government in the late 1970s. 

Two years have passed since work officially started on bringing former leaders of the Khmer Rouge to justice. There have been numerous delays and controversies, but the formal indictment of Eav is a sign of progress.

A spokesman called Eav’s indictment “an important moment in the history of the courts,” for putting the former prison chief on trial will give a boost to the credibility of the process. 

As noted, Eav was in charge of the prison known as S-21 or Tuol Sleng. There, 15,000 prisoners were systematically tortured. Those who survived the ordeal were sent for execution in the notorious “killing fields.”

Progress on the judicial side is also a welcome distraction from the tribunal’s many problems. Donors are withholding promised funds because of corruption allegations and local staff have been working without pay. 

For more information, please see:

BBC – Khmer Rouge’s Duch set for trial – 12 August 2008 

Radio Australia – Financial woes for Khmer Rouge tribunal – 13 August 2008 

Radio Australia – Toul Sleng Prison survivors welcome Duch indictment – 13 August 2008

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BEJING, China – A Christian activist who was detained on his way to a church service attended by President Bush on the opening weekend of the Olympics has not returned home.

Hua Huilin said he and his brother, Hua Huiqi, a member of Beijing’s underground Christian church, were stopped by security agents in two black cars on Sunday while they were cycling to the Kuan Jie Protestant Church around dawn.

The pair was taken in separate cars, but while Huilin was released a few hours later, his brother never returned home. 

“I told him not to go because it’s during the Olympic Games and this period is sensitive,” Huilin told the Associated Press in a telephone interview. “But he was determined to go because he said that church was where he was baptized. So I went with him hoping to protect him.”

Huiqi had been planning for days to be at Kuan Jie Protestant Church at the same time as President Bush, who was in Beijing for the Olympics. It is not immediately clear what Huiqi had planned to do at the church. 

Huiqi, an underground pastor who has fought against a development project in his neighborhood, has been arrested and beaten several times over the last few years because of his religious activities and has served six months in jail for “obstructing official business.”

Chinese authorities often round up activists before and during sensitive periods, taking them to detention centers. Authorities have already further tightened normally stringent restrictions to curb potential criticism or protests during the Olympics. 

For more information, please see:

AP – Chinese activist detained on way to church – 10 August 2008 

AP – Chinese activist still missing after detention – 11 August 2008