Four years after their appeal to have the charges against them dropped, 13 Boeung Kak activists have received a Supreme Court summons for a March 2 hearing.

The 13 women were demonstrating against the Boeung Kak evictions in May 2012 when police arrested them for allegedly occupying private property illegally and aggravated obstruction of public officials.

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court had sentenced them to two and a half years in prison, which the Appeal Court later reduced to time served – just over one month – but upheld their guilty verdict, which the activists appealed to the Supreme Court to overturn.

“We had filed to the Supreme Court to drop all charges because we did not do anything wrong, and just protected our land,” said Tep Vanny, one of the 13 activists.

“We do not know why they summonsed us to participate in the hearing, because it has been about four years that we had not heard from them.”

Five of the Boeung Kak 13 and two other activists were sentenced to a year in prison for another protest in November 2014 but were given a royal pardon five months later.