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.
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