NagaWorld protesters raised banners and balloons outside Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar Prison calling for the release of jailed union leader Chhim Sithar.
The Candlelight Party politician asked for the release on bail of 23 individuals, characterizing their arrests as political cases.
Eng Malai is the sixth activist to be released since Friday, with two of her Khmer Thavrak colleagues, Hun Vannak and Chhoeun Daravy, expected to be released this month.
The 16-year-old son of Kak Komphear was jailed in June over digital messages he sent on Telegram criticizing the government. He was sentenced last week for incitement and insult to four months and 15 days in prison.
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.
Prisoners at Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar Correctional Center I will not be taken to court for hearings for the time being after 18 inmates tested positive for Covid-19 this week.
A Chinese inmate of Prey Sar prison, described as a drug “mastermind,” escaped from the Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital on Sunday night while awaiting surgery, officials said.
More than 1,400 female and juvenile prisoners have been evacuated from Prey Sar Prison’s Correctional Center 2 and squeezed into Phnom Penh’s other overcrowded prisons amid flooding over the past two weeks, officials said on Tuesday.
A new prison building that was to have been reserved for rich inmates willing to pay to be detained in relative comfort has been put under government control, the Interior Ministry’s prisons department spokesman said.
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