The United Nations human rights office on Tuesday expressed concerns over last week's murder of the outspoken Cambodian environmental and human rights activist Chut Wutty, who it said had worked tirelessly to expose illegal logging and corruption in the country.
Rupert Colville, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), told reporters in Geneva that Chut Wutty was shot and killed last Thursday in Cambodia's south-western province of Koh Kong. A member of the Cambodian gendarmerie was also killed in the incident.
"Despite the current lack of clarity about what exactly happened, we are very concerned that the killing of Mr. Wutty marks the latest and most lethal in a series of gun attacks on human rights defenders in Cambodia," Colville said.
Noting that entire communities and several human rights activists have been targeted in such attacks in Cambodia in recent years, Colville said the OHCHR office in Cambodia has investigated four such cases since the beginning of the year.
"We welcome the fact that the authorities have commenced investigations into Thursday's shooting, including a military investigation. We also urge the Government to take concrete and immediate measures to ensure the safety of all witnesses and investigators as well the families of the deceased men," Colville added.
Wutty's killing occurred as he and several journalists were gathering evidence on illegal logging in a forest in Koh Kong Province. Soon after the shooting, a team from the OHCHR office in Phnom Penh visited the site, interviewed residents and monitored the postmortem of the bodies.
At the time of his death, Wutty was the Director of the Natural Resource Protection Group (NRPG), a Cambodian NGO that campaigns against the destruction of the country's forests. Two women journalists who were with Wutty when he was killed were initially detained, but were released later.
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