Boeung Kak lake land rights activist Yorm Bopha is swarmed by supporters and media at Phnom Penh’s municipal police station on Friday night after being released on bail.

Shelving any thoughts that 14 months in prison had deterred her from protesting, Yorm Bopha rushed to the capital’s Borei Keila community yesterday morning to try to stop authorities from forcing evictees from an abandoned building.

Bopha was one of about 10 Boeung Kak activists called on to help after military police and security guards tried to remove a number of families from a building they once lived in, resulting in a disabled man being dragged out, villagers said.

“When we had heard, we went straight there,” said Bopha, who was released on bail from prison on Friday. “We told police to stop ejecting them from the building and offer them a solution first.

“There were many of us there, so police allowed them to stay inside temporarily.”

Borei Keila evictee Tim Sakmony, 65, said a group of military police and security guards dragged her son, Uon Kang Pinith, a disabled 47-year-old recyclables collector, out of the empty building after he had joined a number of families seeking shelter inside.

“His recyclables were getting stolen downstairs, so he tried to take them up there. But they dragged and pushed him out of the building.”

Continue reading: After prison, Bopha undeterred