Two land disputants in Preah Sihanouk have been arrested and charged with violence and obstructing public officials over a clash that took place in February last year.
Lao Annie, who heads several real estate companies in Cambodia, according to company records, said on Tuesday that she was “shocked” when she read news about all the important people who had land near her in Preah Sihanouk.
A tuk-tuk driver has been arrested in Kandal province for allegedly distributing pamphlets to neighbors that contained death threats against Prime Minister Hun Sen, though his wife said he had mental issues and was not politically involved.
Thirty-six Chinese nationals and two Cambodians have been placed in Covid-19 quarantine after a more than 2,500-km journey over six days by sea from China to Koh Rong Sanloem, where they were arrested for alleged illegal entry to the country, authorities said.
A community representative in a Preah Sihanouk land dispute was arrested in a case in which three Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community members were also sentenced to jail last year, and which has previously been reported as involving Deputy Prime Minister Yim Chhay Ly.
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 spokesperson for the Justice Ministry and Cambodian Human Rights Committee hit back at criticism over lack of transparency about Covid-19 cases in the country’s prisons by turning the issue into a matter of privacy.
The Interior Ministry prisons department, Preah Sihanouk provincial administration and Phnom Penh City Hall this week would not offer clarification on a human rights group’s claim that there are “hundreds” of Covid-19 cases in the country’s prisons.
One of the country’s key trucking routes linking the capital to Sihanoukville’s coastal port is set for widening in a $100-million, World Bank-financed project starting next year, as a parallel expressway under construction is also now about 50 percent complete, the Transport Ministry said.
More than 30 inmates at the Preah Sihanouk provincial prison have tested positive for Covid-19, and the country’s prisons department says it is facing an emergency and is at risk of a serious outbreak.
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