A rights monitor questioned the Phnom Penh Municipal Court’s decision to last week hold a mass trial of opposition supporters as the court announced that trials for defendants in the capital’s prisons will be postponed through at least December 14 amid Covid-19 fears.
UPDATED 6 p.m. — The Education Ministry has announced the school year is called off for public schools amid the emergence of a new cluster of coronavirus cases over the weekend.
UPDATED 11:30 a.m. — The total number of Covid-19 cases in the cluster around prisons chief Chhem Savuth has reached 14 due to local transmission, following more than 3,000 samples taken across the country, authorities said.
UPDATED 5:45 p.m. — The country’s prisons director, his wife and four of their family members have tested positive for Covid-19 with the source of their infection unknown, and Phnom Penh’s Aeon Mall I has been temporarily closed following a visit by the director’s wife, the Health Ministry said Sunday morning.
The Phnom Penh court on Thursday sought ways to streamline the mass trial of more than 130 opposition supporters in the face of missed names, crammed-in defendants and complaints that the accused had no information about what they were accused of.
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday again pushed back a trial against nine leaders of the dissolved main opposition party, as the defendants, who are overseas, called for their Cambodian passports to be returned so they can attend.
The trial of former Cambodia Daily journalists Aun Pheap and Zsombor Peter, charged three years ago as the newspaper shut down amid a government crackdown, has been scheduled for Tuesday afternoon at the Ratanakiri Provincial Court.
Economists say the standardizing of regulations in 15 countries that signed a regional free-trade deal could make it attractive for companies to operate in or relocate to low-cost countries like Cambodia.
After three years without a viable political opposition, politicians who stand apart or have broken from the outlawed main opposition party say the old vehicle of the CNRP should be left aside to give people with grievances a chance to participate in politics again.
The Health Ministry announced Monday morning that no new positive Covid-19 cases were found from 1,352 tests over the weekend of a cluster of suspected contacts of Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, who visited the country nearly two weeks ago.
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