About 30 NagaWorld strikers spent the night at a Prek Pnov quarantine center waiting for a Covid-19 test that eventually happened Wednesday morning.

On Tuesday, police and health officials continued to detain protesting NagaWorld workers near the casino complex in Phnom Penh. That afternoon, authorities took 39 workers to the Prek Pnov facility. But unlike Monday’s batch of 64 detainees, health officials did not test the workers the same day as their detention, nor make them sign contracts to leave.

However, health officials began testing workers at about 9 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to worker accounts and Facebook livestreams recorded at the facility. In those streams, workers can be seen keeping track of tests performed.

After the tests were conducted, officials can be heard saying four workers had tested positive, with the group asking for those people to be tested again. Ros Lyheng, a NagaWorld worker at the quarantine center, confirmed there were four positive cases.

“I don’t have anything to suggest besides testing the four people again. If they test again, they are positive. Please take them but we just want to [test] again,” said Srey Pov, one of the workers seen in the livestream.

A health official replied saying that was not possible and that the four workers were being placed in a separate area.

Of the 64 workers tested on Monday, two people tested positive and were sent to hospital for treatment.

Phnom Penh city spokesperson Met Measkpheakdey refused to answer questions Wednesday morning and sent reporters a copy of a City Hall statement released Tuesday night. He did not confirm the test results from the group of 39 workers.

The statement the spokesperson referred to describes “anarchic” gatherings of NagaWorld strikers disobeying city-issued health guidelines.

“City Hall has eagerly appealed to demonstrators to stop illegal activity. They still violated under the pretext of holding a strike to find labor solutions by gathering through social networks and other means, and ignored health measures while Omicron transmission is spreading in the community with three digits,” the statement read.

The capital administration said it would no longer educate the workers and would instead impose fines of $250 to $1,250 going forward, according to the statement.

Meanwhile, workers complained about the conditions at the testing facility, saying the Prek Pnov center lacked basic facilities. The workers detained there said the space was divided into narrow cubicles with cots, as well as dirty linen and bedding that was left outside the rooms.

Photos posted by the workers show them sleeping on mosquito nets outside the rooms at the quarantine center.

Lyheng, one of the workers, said health officials made them complete forms but would not say anything else or address their concerns with the conditions at the facility.

Authorities on Thursday continued to detain NagaWorld workers attempting to resume their strike, with local rights groups criticizing what they described as excessive use of police force including sexual harassment against the strikers.

There have been more than 150 detentions from NagaWorld unionist attempts to resume their strike at the casino complex. Union members confirmed on Thursday that an additional 27 people were detained and taken to the same quarantine center in Prek Pnov that officials have used this week to confine workers and test them for Covid-19.

Thursday’s arrests followed the same strategy used by police over the past few days of shoving, carrying and dragging the workers who appeared near the casino into waiting city buses. Videos from today’s detentions show police officers wearing personal protective equipment pushing women into a bus, crushing some of them against the vehicle’s stairs.

Civil society groups also released a statement condemning the use of “state-sponsored violence” and Covid-19 measures against the workers to end their strike. The groups expressed concern over tactics used by security personnel, which they said includes sexual harassment.

According to the statement, a male police officer grabbed one worker and “squeezed her breast” as she was forced into a bus on Tuesday. The groups also pointed to the alleged use of lewd language and threats of sexual assault made by a security official against a union member in late December.

“In these challenging times, women need increased guarantees to exercise their rights and support, and civil society cannot remain silent in the face of the violence committed against them, all the more when such abuses are committed by the very authorities whose mission is to protect them,” reads the statement.

Ou Tepphalin, who heads a service and entertainment worker federation, said the police were being heartless in their behavior, especially in relation to the allegations of sexual harassment.

“It is unfortunate that when the authorities wear the security uniforms, it seems that the exercise of rights is reduced and the perpetrators are not afraid of the law,” she said, during an online press conference by rights groups.

Phnom Penh police chief Sar Thet denied that any officers were intentionally touching the workers inappropriately, and blamed the physical skirmishes on workers’ reluctance to follow authorities’ instructions.

“No one intended to touch her breast,” he said, referring to the allegation in the statement. “I think we don’t have the intention to do this and I believe that no one wants to do that.”

As of Thursday morning, about 75 detainees brought on Tuesday and Wednesday remained at the Prek Pnov center.

Authorities had brought 39 workers there on Tuesday, of which four tested positive and were taken to a hospital. Of the 51 detained on Wednesday, three tested positive on Thursday morning and were taken for treatment. The rest of the detainees were still at the center as of Thursday evening.

Workers say officials have demanded the detainees sign contracts pledging to end their striking or pay fines of $1,250. The workers have refused this, instead choosing to remain at the facility. However, on Thursday 35 workers were released and allowed to return home, said striker Ros Lyheng, who is part of the group.

“They did not have a car to pick us up, they told us to find our own way [home],” Lyheng said. “Doctors told me if you want to have a bus for you, you should sign a contract.”