Francophonie summit must speak up on Mother Nature Cambodia 5

When leaders from around the Francophone world meet on November 15 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, five activists from the country’s preeminent environmental group will be serving their 866th day in prison. They are Ly Chandaravuth, Thun Ratha, Yim Leanghy, Phuon Keoraksmey and Long Kunthea, collectively known as the Mother Nature Cambodia 5, or MNC5. When they were free, they worked with local communities to educate and empower them to defend forests, wetlands, rivers and seas. They researched, investigated and exposed failures to protect the environment and documented their activities on social media for the Cambodian people to see and discuss. Mother Nature Cambodia plays a critically important role for the people of Cambodia, who have suffered from the nation’s environmental degradation in the rapacious pursuit of resources. The group has led numerous campaigns to protect the environment. They led the successful effort to stop the Stung Cheay Areng hydropower dam, which threatened to flood homes, indigenous communities and forests in the pristine Areng Valley in Koh Kong province. They exposed the damage caused by sand dredging and the corruption surrounding its export to Singapore’s construction industry, a campaign that led to a multi-year export ban that has since been lifted. They protested government-backed developers’ destruction of Boeung Tamok, a vital wetland in Phnom Penh, and the illegal logging of the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary. They stood up against the destruction of mangrove forests and critical coastal habitats in Koh Kong, and documented and exposed the illegal pollution of the Tonle Sap River in Phnom Penh. Their supposed crime? Simply put, speaking out against the corruption and greed that drive the plunder of Cambodia’s natural resources. They urged protection for the environment, and when authorities and their cronies ignored those calls, they organized peaceful, symbolic public protests to draw attention to their demands. The government responded by revoking Mother Nature’s legal registration and harassing, intimidating and ultimately imprisoning its top activists. The five were unjustly convicted for “plotting” against the government and sentenced to six years in prison. Their lawyer appealed their convictions in July 2024 and has pressed the request repeatedly since. Nearly two and a half years later, the government has yet to schedule an appeal hearing. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) investigated the MNC5’s treatment by the government and judiciary, and comprehensively concluded that their detention is arbitrary and unjust on multiple grounds. The working group said that “the appropriate remedy would be to release [them] immediately and accord them an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law.” Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, also prominently raised their case in his October 2026 report to the UN Human Rights Council and called for their release. The government has deliberately sent them to separate prisons, and cruelly ensured they are incarcerated in facilities far from their families, making visits extremely difficult. Keoraksmey, widely known by her nickname Akeo, is from Bavet City, on the Cambodia-Vietnam border in Svay Rieng province, but is being held in Pursat prison, a seven-hour drive from her home. Cambodian prisons are the second worst worldwide in terms of overcrowding, according to the World Prison Brief, with inadequate nutritious food and clean water. Each of the MNC5 faces these conditions daily. Each of the MNC5 was a breadwinner for their families, who now suffer serious economic hardship in their absence. Yet despite these hardships, the five activists stand firm that they have done nothing wrong and should be released. “We are willing to express our thanks to the authorities if we are released, but we will not apologize to them,” Ly said from prison. Francophonie nation leaders should raise the MNC5’s case with their Cambodian hosts and press for their release. Doing so would align squarely with the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie’s mandate “to promote peace, democracy and human rights.” At a time when international concerns about environmental protection and climate action are at an all-time high, the continued imprisonment of Cambodia’s leading environmental group contradicts the spirit of civil society engagement that supposedly motivates the Francophonie movement. At a minimum, Francophonie leaders should urge Cambodia to schedule the MNC5’s appeals trial so the court can consider the WGAD’s determination that their initial trial was unfair. The Francophonie community should take up this appeal from the MNC5 and call on the Cambodian government to release them immediately, without conditions, and recognize the importance of initiating dialogue with environmental defenders instead of criminalizing and jailing them. Phil Robertson is director of Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates (AHRLA)