More than 40 people have been arrested this year in relation to alleged chaos-causing incitement and spreading coronavirus-related “fake news,” a police spokesman said.
More than 30 garment workers were injured, seven seriously, when a truck taking them to multiple factories flipped over in Takeo province on Wednesday morning, an official said.
While most of Cambodia’s Covid-19 infections have been linked to foreign travel, the Health Ministry and World Health Organization have warned that the country could face community transmission and localized outbreaks, especially if authorities are not able to trace the virus’s spread.
The editor-in-chief of popular online news outlet TVFB was jailed on Thursday on incitement charges in relation to a Facebook post in which he shared remarks made by Prime Minister Hun Sen this week about struggling informal workers.
The government said it will not release any of the nation’s nearly 39,000 prisoners on bail amid the Covid-19 pandemic, despite concerns about possible outbreaks in prisons raised by human rights groups, the U.N. and prisoners’ families.
While the government has not reported a new Covid-19 case in three days, the global pandemic promises to alter traditional Khmer New Year festivities next week, with religious and most public gatherings banned and police tasked with preventing large assemblies of people.
In Takeo province — where no one has been confirmed infected with Covid-19 — and other parts of the country, authorities are preparing health institutions and raising public awareness about preventative health measures, while religious leaders share blessings to ward off evil, ghosts and the respiratory disease.
The Health Ministry confirmed two more cases of the Covid-19 respiratory disease late Thursday, and another recovered patient, bringing the nation’s total number of infections since January to 98.
Six more Covid-19 cases have been confirmed in the last 24 hours, all foreign nationals, while four Cambodians have recovered and were released from hospital quarantine after testing negative for the virus, officials said.
At least 17 people have been arrested since January over their unverified claims about Covid-19, criticisms of the government’s outbreak response and other online posts deemed “fake news” by authorities, a human rights organization said on Tuesday.
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