asianews

Office of the President
No: 314 /KKF/N/2009


Dear Immigrant Officers of Foreign Embassies in Cambodia and Cambodian Community Leaders Abroad: A high profile Khmer-Krom activist, Tim Sakhorn, reported about how he was dramatically arrested, deported from Cambodia to be imprisoned in Vietnam by the monks in Cambodia.

On June 30, 2007, Venerable Cheas Om, who was a high-ranking Buddhist monk in Takeo province in Seyha Rattana Ram Temple, called Venerable Tim Sakhorn to visit him. When Venerable Tim Sakhorn arrived at his temple, Venerable Tim Sakhorn saw other Buddhist monks from Phnom Penh waiting for him there. Venerable Sao Chanthol took a defrocking ordered letter, which was signed and stamped by the Supreme Patriarch Tep Vong and Non Nget, and read it to accuse Venerable Tim Sakhorn for using his temple to undermine the relationship between Cambodia and Vietnam.

Venerable Tim Sakhorn denied the accusation and refused to be defrocked because he did not committed the crime as they accused him and he did not violate any Buddhism’s principles in order to be defrocked. Venerable Long Kim Leang directly stripped off Venerable Tim Sakhorn’s frock in front of everyone and threw him clothes that they already brought with them from Phnom Penh, dragged him to a car that was already parked outside of the room where they met, and pushed him into the car to deport him to Vietnam in the same day. Consequently, Tim Sakhorn, a Cambodian citizen, was thrown in Vietnamese prison for a year before being granted asylum to live in Sweden.