On Thursday 26 March, at 8:30 a.m., the Victims Support Section (VSS) of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) together with the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts of the Royal Government of Cambodia will inaugurate a Memorial to Victims of the Democratic Kampuchea Regime at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh.
The Ceremony, to be presided over by H.E. Dr. Sok An, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister in Charge of the Office of the Council of Ministers, and Chairman of the Cambodian Royal Government Task Force on the Khmer Rouge Trials; and H.E. Joachim Baron von Marschall, German Ambassador to Cambodia, will be held in the presence of survivors of the S-21 Security Center and Civil Parties before the ECCC, representatives from Victims Association and other related stakeholders. The Memorial is dedicated to and erected in memory of all victims of the Democratic Kampuchea regime, especially to the at least 12,272 victims who were unlawfully detained at S-21 prison, a Phnom Penh security center during the Democratic Kampuchea regime from 1975 to 1979, where they were subjected to inhumane conditions, forced labour and torture, and eventually killed at the execution site of Choeung Ek, or the labour camp of Prey Sar (S-24).
The Memorial (built on an area of 400 square meters, with 6 meters in height) was designed and erected by the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts (General Department of Cultural Heritage), in close cooperation with the Victims Support Section of the ECCC, and other stakeholders with financial support from German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)/GIZ.
The construction of the Memorial at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a part of the Victim’s Support Section's mandate to develop non-judicial programs and measures addressing the broader interests of victims.