Officers Accused of Guarding the Slave Compounds — the State's First Duty Is to Answer for This

Amnesty International, a global rights group, has alleged that Cambodian police and military officers worked as private security guards in abusive scam compounds. For voters who hold that a state's first duty is to protect the people living under its flag, an allegation like this cuts to whether authority means anything at all.

According to an Amnesty International report, thousands of people were forced to work in the online fraud industry in the scam compounds. Survivors told the group that serving officers who worked as guards administered electric shocks and beatings — testimony no serious government can wave away.

Amnesty alleged that the officers worked for security companies as part of a system that enabled slavery and rape in the compounds, and that some guards used electric batons to keep people trapped. Skeptics of global rights bodies will want these claims tested in a court rather than settled by assertion; either way, the men accused are described as wearing the uniform of the state.