KANDAL STUNG DISTRICT, Kandal — Villagers in dispute with Phnom Penh’s new, under-construction airport protested after Kandal authorities destroyed a road leading to their homes and farmland with the aid of a heavy security presence.
Political analyst Kem Ley’s murder of July 10, 2016, ignited one of the last outpourings of mass civic and political expression seen in an increasingly repressed nation. Recollections from Phnom Penh residents, Ley’s colleagues and others are pieced together in this account of the historic day and the weeks that followed.
Phnom Penh continues to see the bulk of new cases: 2,934 were announced in the past week. And Pur Senchey and Meanchey districts remain the worst-hit areas in the capital, recording 852 and 656 new cases for the week, according to City Hall data compiled by VOD.
Phnom Penh has been at the center of the recent Covid-19 outbreak, reporting more than 2,000 cases in the past week, according to Phnom Penh City Hall data. The outbreak has spread rapidly through the city’s markets and factories — leading to the country’s first lockdown and the creation of “red zones.”
Five detained forestry activists, including Goldman Prize-winning Ouch Leng, were released on Monday morning after days of questioning. A local villager told of entering the Prey Lang sanctuary with the group on Friday to put up banners saying “Please preserve our forests.”
Six case files against 153 CNRP defendants, split into four trials, make up a web of ongoing prosecutions against the outlawed opposition’s senior leaders and grassroots supporters.
UPDATED 6:50 p.m. — Pasteur Institute is running nearly 2,500 tests a day — “close to their limit” — while tests for airplane passengers have moved to the National Institute of Public Health. Pasteur is pooling samples, among other strategies, to accelerate testing volumes, the U.S. CDC says.
Following aggressive expansion by the country’s delivery services, a number of drivers speak of fast-dropping delivery fees, which some say have fallen to a third of what they once got; uncertainty over worker benefits; and a lack of collective representation.
PREY PHNHEAS, Battambang — Prey Phnheas village is a 60-minute drive south of Battambang’s provincial capital. Road 151, which leads to the village, is lined with rice fields getting their first taste of the monsoons in mid-August. But the closer you get to Prey Phnheas, the rice shoots are not as green.
Migrant workers in Battambang said they had no capital or land to start a farm and were heavily indebted. And with a glut of workers returning to the countryside, farm labor jobs were scarce and barely paid enough to live, they said.
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