This article was originally published on HaRDstories as Creative Commons.

Every time her young son asks, “Where is Papa?” Pat Reaksmey struggles to answer.

She tells him his father is busy studying. What she cannot bring herself to say is that Thun Ratha, an environmental activist who spent years trying to protect Cambodia’s forests and rivers, is in prison.

In July 2024 a court in Phnom Penh convicted him and four fellow members of Mother Nature of plotting against the government. He was sentenced to six years. Their youngest child was not yet born when he was taken away.

Civil society groups and rights organisations worldwide condemned the verdict. Mother Nature, a youth-led environmental movement founded in 2012, rejected the charges. Its supporters said the activists had done nothing more than document the destruction of Cambodia’s environment.

Nearly two years on, a long-awaited appeals hearing scheduled for 2 June has been abruptly postponed. Last week, 70 civil society organisations worldwide called for the activists’ immediate release. For Reaksmey and the other families, it was another blow.

“My three children never received warmth or guidance from their father,” she told HaRDstories by phone.

She raises them largely on her own – a six-year-old, a two-year-old, and a one-year-old – living with her mother in the provinces, where she runs a small grocery store. Her two youngest barely know their father.

When Ratha was first arrested, their eldest son was six months old. When he was arrested again, their second son was the same age, and Reaksmey was already pregnant with their daughter, though she did not yet know it. 

“I was so consumed by his court case that I didn’t even realise,” she said.

Dangerous work

Mother Nature is one of Cambodia’s most visible environmental movements. Since 2012, the group has focused on defending the country’s natural resources, exposing environmental destruction, and mobilising communities.

The group’s campaigns drew attention, and results. A proposed hydropower dam in the Areng Valley, which would have displaced Indigenous communities in the Cardamom Mountains, was abandoned. Sand mining operations in Koh Kong province were forced back. The group’s mix of grassroots organising and social media savvy brought its audiences far beyond Cambodia’s borders. 

In 2023, Mother Nature received the Right Livelihood Award. The prize, sometimes called the Alternative Nobel Prize, was a moment of global recognition for a group that had long operated under threat at home.

The movement’s founder, Spanish environmental activist Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, was deported from Cambodia in February 2015 after leading a campaign against the Areng Valley dam project. Civil society groups appealed to the government and petitioned the Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni. Neither made any difference.

The campaigns continued. Mother Nature’s push against sand mining in the country’s coastal estuaries eventually led the government to end sand exports to Singapore, a significant victory. But the confrontations were becoming more dangerous.

In 2020, Long Kunthea, Phuon Keoreaksmey and Thun Ratha were arrested for organising a peaceful protest march to then-Prime Minister Hun Sen’s residence to protest the filling in of Boeung Tamok, Phnom Penh’s largest lake. Convicted of incitement in 2021, they were released on bail under restrictive conditions.

In July 2024, a Phnom Penh court handed down its verdict on ten environmental activists charged with insulting the king and plotting to overthrow the government. Five were from Mother Nature. Thun Ratha, Ly Chandaravuth, Long Kunthea, Phuon Keoraksmey, and Yim Leanghy were sentenced to between six and eight years in prison. Leanghy received an additional term for insulting the king.

A chilling effect

For the families, the charges required little interpretation. The activists had spent years filming what powerful people would rather not be seen: illegal sand dredging, lakes filled in overnight, forests cleared for private gain. Now five of them were in prison for it.

“All the videos they produced were talking about environmental protection and revealing the corruption of those in power,” said Reaksmey. “The world gave them an award, but Cambodia’s court put them in jail. It’s so unjust.”

Long Soklin, whose sister Long Kunthea is among those imprisoned, was equally dismissive of the charges. “There is no evidence of my sister opposing or overthrowing the government,” she said. “Why accuse her of such a thing?”

Kunthea had always kept her struggles to herself, Soklin said. Reserved by nature, she shielded her widowed mother from worry and never spoke of the dangers her work carried. As the eldest daughter, she had shouldered the family’s burdens alone.

Now those burdens have shifted. Two of Soklin’s siblings dropped out of school, something the family attributes, at least in part, to the strain of Kunthea’s imprisonment. Their youngest sister is still studying, currently in year ten.

The arrests have had consequences beyond the five families. Moeu Chandara, president of the Cambodian Youth Network, said the convictions sent a clear message to a generation of would-be activists.

“Their arrests discouraged other activists and set a bad example by trying to silence dissenting voices,” he said.

Heng Kimsour, policy and advocacy officer at the NGO Partnership for Environment and Development, said the case exposed a glaring double standard.

“They researched natural resource crimes and exposed those in power who exploited these resources for personal gain,” she said. “Yet there was no investigation or arrest of the perpetrators. Instead, the youth group was imprisoned.”

Cambodia’s constitution gives citizens the right to participate in national affairs. In practice, Kimsour said, that guarantee means little.

“Article 35 guarantees citizens’ participation in all sectors,” she said. “But people face arrest simply for expressing concerns about environmental issues.”

Separation as punishment?

Reaksmey spends a significant amount of money visiting her husband. She travels from Kandal province to Tboung Khmum province, where Ratha is serving his six-year sentence at Trapeang Phlong Prison, bringing food and other necessities for him.

Authorities placed the five activists in separate prisons across Cambodia: Thun Ratha at Correctional Center 3 in Tboung Khmum province, Ly Chandaravuth in Kandal prison, Phuon Keoraksmey in Pursat provincial prison, Yim Leanghy in Kampong Speu prison, and Long Kunthea in Preah Vihear prison.

Kunthea’s sister Soklin and her family could only visit Kunthea once a month while she was imprisoned in Preah Vihear. When visiting, the family incurs significant expenses, including travel, a one-night stay in Preah Vihear province, and purchasing supplies and leaving money for Kunthea’s prison use.

“We’re stretched financially, so we can’t afford to visit her as often as we’d like,” she said.

They spent 662 days separated from one another, making it difficult for family members and lawyers to visit them and limiting access to healthcare and legal support.

Local rights group Licadho criticised the decision to separate the activists, calling it cruel and unusual punishment without precedent in Cambodia.

The organisation noted that the transfers appeared to violate the Ministry of Interior’s 2022 detention policies. Under those guidelines, Correctional Center 3 is reserved for prisoners serving sentences of 15 years to life, while Ratha was sentenced to only six years.

Rights groups argued that the separation was designed to isolate the activists from one another and place them far from their families.

“Kill one, terrify a thousand”

On 26 April 2012, forest activist Chut Wutty was shot dead while investigating illegal logging in Koh Kong province. More than a decade later, nobody has been held to account.

His case became a marker, the moment many point to when tracing the cost of environmental activism in Cambodia. His family and rights groups are still calling for a credible investigation.

Moeu Chandara, president of the Cambodian Youth Network, said activists here tend to meet one of three fates.

“There is assassination, as in Chut Wutty’s case; exile, as in Ouch Leng’s case; and arrest, as in Mother Nature’s case,” he said.

Ouch Leng, a Goldman Prize winner, was among six activists detained in November 2024 while investigating illegal logging in Veun Sai-Siem Pang National Park. They were released without charge. Others have not waited to find out what comes next, some have already left the country.

In November 2024, six environmental activists, including Ouch Leng, were detained while investigating illegal logging in Veun Sai-Siem Pang National Park. They were later released without charge after being accused of unauthorized entry.

Heng Sros is one of them. Now in exile, he told HaRDstories the legal system punishes the wrong people.

“Activists who protect natural resources face persecution, legal battles, and other forms of oppression because there are no laws to protect them,” he said. “If the courts did not side with the government and ruling party, they’d get justice.”

Heng Kimsour, of the Partnership for Environment and Development, said the strategy is deliberate and well understood.

“This is a ‘kill one, terrify a thousand’ approach,” she said. “By punishing a few activists publicly, authorities create fear among other young people and discourage them from engaging in social work.”

In March, the Supreme Court rejected a request to release the five Mother Nature activists. The Ministry of Justice said the ruling was a demonstration of the court’s independence, as guaranteed by the Cambodian Constitution. Rights groups called it something else.

Reaksmey does not talk about the future much. There are three children to feed, a grocery store to run, and prison visits to save for. The days are full enough.

But she has not given up. She married Ratha in 2019 knowing the risks his work carried.

“I knew the dangers,” she said. “But I love his work – it benefits the country. We decided to marry and face it together.”

As her children grow up without knowing their father, she still hopes justice will come, not only for Ratha, but for every Cambodian who dares to protect the country’s forests, rivers, and land.

Phoung Vantha is a Cambodian journalist based in Phnom Penh. He is a freelance reporter who covers human rights, social issues, and environmental topics.