Fourteen defendants — six of them in absentia — were tried for incitement at the Tbong Khmum Provincial Court in a full-day hearing that saw questions over messages on T-shirts and rallies in Phnom Penh, family members said.
Ten to 20 percent of inmates at infected prisons — likely thousands of prisoners — were found with Covid-19, as a prison official said that weeks of concealing the extent of the outbreak was about preventing riots and protecting prison guards.
A former opposition senator has been appointed to a government position after returning from exile in Sweden, where she was evading an 18-month prison sentence for accusing Prime Minister Hun Sen of ordering the assassination of political analyst Kem Ley.
A repeatedly delayed incitement trial for 14 activists in Tbong Khmum province has been scheduled again for next week, with families pleading for movement in the case — but a court spokesman said further potential delays would be up to the discretion of the judge.
Seven women handing a petition to the U.N. human rights office for the release of their jailed activist family members say they were surrounded by 30 to 40 officers, shoved into a flower bed, and told their small gathering required prior permission.
Civil society observers welcomed the justice minister’s call to root out corruption in the courts, but said challenges could remain to remove politics from the country’s judiciary.
Tbong Khmum, the nation’s youngest province, has faced a sharp crackdown against opposition supporters in the last several months, with at least nine activists in jail. But family members of imprisoned CNRP supporters say they will not be silenced.
A former vice president of the outlawed opposition CNRP has broken with the strident wing of the party in asking the government to be reinstated to politics this week, a course of action that a party co-founder has previously criticized as effective betrayal.
Prime Minister Hun Sen is setting the stage for heightened repression with his message over the weekend that there are opposition plans “to sabotage the upcoming elections,” civil society groups say.
Six defendants who were arrested for protesting outside the Chinese Embassy on Paris Peace Agreements Day in October, as well as two others at large, faced trial on Monday for incitement at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court.
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