A Cambodian man accused by police of impersonating a law enforcement officer and transporting a Chinese man outside a locked-down Covid-19 “red zone” in Sihanoukville was sent to the provincial court on Wednesday, a court official said.
Following hundreds of arrests, at least 102 people are facing court charges for Covid-19 violations, including more than a dozen put on trial without a lawyer after the accused chose to represent themselves in their misdemeanor cases, according to court officials.
Just over 100 people were arrested and fined in Phnom Penh in one day as authorities introduced canes for beating lockdown violators, a police official said on Wednesday.
Cambodia’s Culture Ministry called out Vice News and a photo editing company after the media outlet featured photos of S-21 prisoners edited to have smiling faces, which Khmer Rouge survivors and family members called traumatizing.
Violators of Covid-19 public health measures should be arrested one day and put on trial the next, Prime Minister Hun Sen said, ordering the creation of a special court to crack down on those who flout travel bans and other orders.
Three youth activists for environmental group Mother Nature stood firm in the closing of their incitement trial on Thursday as the presiding judge pressed them that the group’s Facebook page was illegal, the government filling in lakes would improve traffic, and the activists’ research was insufficient.
Three Mother Nature environmentalists — arrested while preparing a video campaign against the infilling of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Tamok lake — disputed the alleged criminality of their actions while on trial on Wednesday, arguing that raising concerns is not “incitement” as charged, their lawyer said.
A prisons official acknowledged that social distancing was impossible in the country’s overcrowded cells, but said officers were maintaining hygiene, checking prisoners for fevers and quarantining new arrivals for two weeks as Covid-19 prevention measures.
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday charged a man under the nation’s new Covid-19 law over a social media video in which he tells factory workers not to take Chinese-made coronavirus vaccines, officials said.
The case of a tycoon’s domestic violence against his ex-wife, caught on home security cameras and shared online, is now in the hands of Phnom Penh Municipal Police as the man’s “oknha” title was revoked on Thursday by royal decree.
Several communes in Phnom Penh and most of Takhmao City will have lockdown restrictions eased starting Thursday, authorities have announced.
Updated: City Hall Eases Restrictions in Several Communes Apr 27, 12:11 pm 
Longer Delay Recommended Between Covid-19 Vaccine Doses Apr 15, 7:17 pm 
Four Phnom Penh Communes, Three Villages Declared… Apr 19, 7:54 pm 
Cambodia ‘on the Brink of a National Tragedy’: WHO Apr 10, 2:01 pm 
Updated: Hun Sen Officially Declares Lockdown of Phnom Penh Apr 14, 8:18 pm 
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