February 14^th     2O14, Phnom Penh Cambodia,

We, the Cambodian women, men and youth of the One Billion Rising activist were disappointed that the local authority had stopped our biking campaign on February 14, 2014 which we were started our biking at 7:30 am at Gender and Development for Cambodia (GADC) # 89, St. 288, Sangkat Olympic Khan Chamcarmon, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We all about two hundred and we were very excited start biking.

Unfortunately, the local authority and the police force of Khan Chamcarmon stopped us and the reasons are:

1. the permission letter authorized by Phnom Penh City Hall were not clearly defined locations of biking that we intended to do. Although we had sent the map of biking to relevant district offices in Phnom Penh once we received the permission letter to inform them about our plan specifically on the places that we were going to bike.
2. the local authority argued for security and disorder that may cause by the campaign.
3. the issues of new government sub-decree does not allow any gathering with more than 10 people.

For those reasons we had a discussion with the district governor right away (8.40am until 10am) which we tried suggest them to let us continue our campaign. Yet, as the result we decided to dismiss our biking campaign into individual biking exercise to different places around Phnom Penh in order to maintain our aim in delivering our messages “ Ending Violence Against Women and Girls”, and “Rise Release and Dance for Love and Justice”.

In fact, the government response this morning does not illustrate commitment that the governments declare in Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Universal declaration of Human Rights and Cambodia constitution.  In addition, the campaign was properly and carefully planned by the OBR activist in Cambodia to avoid the violence that may happen as mentioned by the authority. As observed, this intervention may be also influenced by another campaign which was happening at the same day in Phnom Penh.

As describe above, we, OBR Cambodia activist call for the OBR secretariat, and friends around the world to take action and rise to stop VAW and girls for us.  We all strongly believe that once we rise together we can end the violence and find justice.

For more information please contact:

Ms. Ros Sopheap

Executive Director of GADC

Tel: +855 12 627 857

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.gadc.org.kh