Some 132 lawsuits against 379 people have been used to silence expression and stifle civic engagement in the year to March, with most of the actions brought by the government, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights said.
Three activists — including a monk — were arrested over two days at a series of small protests ongoing in Phnom Penh, with the Interior Ministry ordering action against two groups “causing chaos in society.”
Police and military police have built new headquarters in a Phnom Penh public park where a large banyan tree has long been used as a gathering place for protesters.
City Hall says protesters should have nothing to fear from its drones recently being deployed to monitor them, as long as they do nothing wrong.
The youth activist group that has been largely driving this month’s protests in support of unionist Rong Chhun will again attempt to hold a demonstration against the arrests of government critics — including two of its members now in jail — early next month.
Authorities and protesters clashed outside the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday as a group of about 20 demonstrators — at least two of whom were injured — called for the release of jailed union leader Rong Chhun.
Twenty villagers engaged in a dispute with a rubber plantation over more than 400 hectares of land in Tbong Khmum province were released from custody on Tuesday after they were arrested the day before for allegedly damaging the company’s land-clearing machinery, an official said.
The leader of an informal workers’ union in Poipet City said excessive security forces were deployed throughout the city as a “threat” after his request to hold a demonstration over border crossing restrictions next week was denied.
Ten petitioners who called on the government this week to provide debt relief and protective health supplies to poor citizens were detained and questioned in Phnom Penh and Kampong Speu province, and then released after agreeing not to petition the state again.
“Every day, my daughter asks ‘Mom why don’t we have a daddy? Mom, why do I not have a papa like the others,” the wife of victim Sam Ravy, Chheav Phanith, under tears told attendants of an anniversary event.
Justice Ministry officials need more room, so “empty public land” will be used to store court documents by filling in another part of Boeng Tamok, one of Phnom Penh’s “last lakes” that feeds hundreds of families and protects the capital from flooding.
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