Career
She was sentenced to three years" imprisonment for "intentional violence with aggravating circumstances" on 27 December 2012, leading several human rights groups to protest on her behalf. Developers began pumping sand into the lake, and in 2011, a British Broadcasting Corporation reporter described what was once Phnom Penh"s biggest lake as having shrunk to "little more than a puddle". According to Amnesty International, more than 20,000 residents were displaced by the development.
In 2011, the World Bank suspended aid to Cambodia until the situation was resolved.
Yorm Bopha was active in protests supporting residents" land rights. In 2012, she led a campaign for the freedom of thirteen women sentenced to prison for their role in one of the protests.
On 28 December 2012, Yorm Bopha was convicted of "intentional violence with aggravating circumstances", following an incident in August of that year in which she allegedly assaulted two taxi drivers. Riot police surrounded the courthouse as she was sentenced, using electric batons to hold back protestors.
Yorm Bopha later protested the judgement, saying, "This is injustice in the money-and-dollar society." Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, stated, "I think with this case the court is trying to stop land protests."
The World Organisation Against Torture and the International Federation for Human Rights released a joint statement calling for the pair"s "immediate and unconditional release and the lift of pending charges, as their detention and judicial harassment seem to merely aim at obstructing their human rights activities and appear to be a result of them exercising their right to freedoms of expression and association".
On March 27, 2013, the Cambodian Supreme Court denied Bopha’s request for bail pending her appeal. In June 2013, a Court of Appeals upheld Bopha"s conviction but reduced her sentence to two years. On November 22, 2013, the Supreme Court released Bopha on bail, ordering that her case be further investigated and re-tried.
