Twenty-six female inmates at the Siem Reap Provincial Prison have further tested positive for Covid-19, as family members of jailed rapper Kea Sokun as well as opposition activist Mao Sarin said they hadn’t seen their jailed relatives in months and were concerned for their health.
Cases have now been announced in at least nine of the country’s 28 overcrowded prisons, as the Justice Ministry discusses measures to reduce inmate numbers by releasing those close to the end of their sentences. Ministry spokesperson Kim Santepheap said on Monday that Justice Minister Keut Rith was considering the decision.
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.
Cambodian Freedom Fighters commander Richard Kiri Kim, jailed for life for leading an armed attack on government buildings in 2000, died of Covid-19 on Thursday, a prisons official said.
An inmate of Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison, currently dealing with a Covid-19 outbreak, died from pneumonia at the Khmer-Soviet hospital on Monday, according to his wife, who said he did not have Covid-19 but the prisons were slow to treat him.
New inmates arriving to Banteay Meanchey and Svay Rieng provincial prisons tested positive for Covid-19 — in the latter case, after being in contact with nearly 50 people — with the disease now having spread to at least seven prisons.
An inmate has died of Covid-19 and more than 100 have the virus at the Kampong Speu Provincial Prison, the provincial governor said on Tuesday while denying he knew exactly when the outbreak started.
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.
Through prison guards and unnamed NGOs, the wives and brother of three jailed dissidents have been told their imprisoned relatives have Covid-19, amid outbreaks in at least four of the nation’s prisons, the extent of which has not been revealed by the government.
A prisons department spokesperson on Wednesday confirmed there were Covid-19 cases in Phnom Penh’s PJ prison but would not say how many, while the mother of a prisoner there said her daughter had heard of widespread transmission.
A 16-year-old son of a jailed CNRP official was denied bail by the Appeal Court following his arrest in June for incitement and insulting public officials over his digital activities.
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