This photo taken on October 12, 2020, shows tourists visiting the Angkor Wat temple in Siem Reap province, where a few hundred cult followers have now taken refuge on a remote farm after prophecies that doomsday floods would occur by Aug. 31. (Photo: AFP)
The Cambodian government will not prosecute members of a doomsday cult but has warned legal action could follow if hundreds of followers, who believe the world is about to end, are denied the right to leave by self-declared Brahma (heavenly king) Khem Veasna.
The Ministry of Justice said that even if followers were lured to the farm in Siem Reap province, they could not act in regards to the cult because people had chosen to travel to the farm and join the cult voluntarily.
“There is nothing we can do about this,” Justice Ministry spokesman Chin Malin said, adding there were no laws to charge anyone in regards to the cult because people had the freedom to choose.
However, he also told the pro-government Khmer Times authorities would act immediately and legal action would be taken if cult leaders held people against their will, prevented members from contacting their parents or found them to be suffering.
Khem Veasna, president of the League for Democracy Party (LDP), had prophesied doomsday floods would occur by Aug. 31 attracting about 20,000 people to a farm in the country’s remote west, many of them young people. He said only his farm would be spared.
However, the floods failed to materialize and numbers holed up fell sharply leaving behind a hardcore group of nearly a thousand people who still believe the apocalypse is pending.
Desperate parents have pleaded with their teenage children on social media to return home after they set up tents and camped out at the farm.
Eam Voeun failed to persuade his son to come home after he threatened to take his own life.
“My son was threatening to kill himself for asking him to leave the farm. Let me tell you, if my kid kills himself there, I will sue Khem Veasna because I am disappointed with my son,” he told the Khmer Times. “He has never done such foolish things in his life.”
A split has also emerged between leaders of the cult with LDP vice permanent president, Ny Chanpinith, who owns the 37-hectare farm, requesting assistance from provincial officials to evict remaining followers.
He said the crowd had been told to go home but many have refused. He told local media: “I cannot dislodge them so I am asking the authorities to help me evict them.”
However, Khem Veasna insisted on Facebook that he had told the truth and that Ny Chanpinith was seeking help because he had signed an agreement pledging to disperse the crowd by last Monday.
“The authorities are lying and acting. They do not care about the well-being of the people,” he said, adding his followers had every right to remain.
Meanwhile, Hun Manet, the eldest son of Prime Minister Hun Sen and also the deputy commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, said he was concerned about the doomsday cult and added beliefs are a personal right but they should not be extreme.
“Beliefs are one thing, but excessive beliefs can disown brothers, sisters and parents. I think that although our beliefs differ, a sense of morality and virtue means we should always remember that our parents are our parents, and our family is our family,” he said.