Uwazi

Koet Saray, President of the Khmer Student Intelligent League Association (KSILA), was today sent to pre-trial detention at Correctional Centre 1 prison by an investigating judge at the at Phnom Penh Capital Court following charges of “committing a misdemeanour after sentencing for a misdemeanour” and “incitement to commit a felony” under Articles 88, 494, and 495 of the Criminal Code. The charges relate to ongoing land conflicts in Preah Vihear province.

On 6 April at around 3:30pm, police officers confirmed that Saray had been transported to the Phnom Penh Capital Court from the Phnom Penh Police Commissariat, where he had been held overnight following his arrest on 5 April at around 4:00pm by approximately 10 mixed uniformed and plainclothes police officers outside of KSILA’s office in Phnom Penh. Saray’s arrest followed an order issued by the Office of the Prosecutor at Phnom Penh Capital Court on 5 April to bring Saray to Phnom Penh Capital Police for questioning on “incitement to cause serious chaos to social security”.

One monk and around a dozen individuals from various youth groups and civil society organisations had been present at the Phnom Penh Police Commissariat on 6 April to monitor the situation. A few plainclothes police officers had also been deployed nearby, where they took photographs and videos and prevented human rights defenders from bringing food to Saray.

In 2023, the Supreme Court upheld incitement convictions against Saray and nine other activists in relation to peaceful gatherings calling for the release of then-imprisoned union leader Rong Chhun. The lower court had sentenced Saray in October 2021 to 20 months’ imprisonment with six months of his sentence suspended for a period of two years, and fined him 2 million riel (US$500).

Koet Saray, President of the Khmer Student Intelligent League Association (KSILA), was today sent to pre-trial detention at Correctional Centre 1 prison by an investigating judge at the at Phnom Penh Capital Court following charges of “committing a misdemeanour after sentencing for a misdemeanour” and “incitement to commit a felony” under Articles 88, 494, and 495 of the Criminal Code. The charges relate to ongoing land conflicts in Preah Vihear province.

On 6 April at around 3:30pm, police officers confirmed that Saray had been transported to the Phnom Penh Capital Court from the Phnom Penh Police Commissariat, where he had been held overnight following his arrest on 5 April at around 4:00pm by approximately 10 mixed uniformed and plainclothes police officers outside of KSILA’s office in Phnom Penh. Saray’s arrest followed an order issued by the Office of the Prosecutor at Phnom Penh Capital Court on 5 April to bring Saray to Phnom Penh Capital Police for questioning on “incitement to cause serious chaos to social security”.

One monk and around a dozen individuals from various youth groups and civil society organisations had been present at the Phnom Penh Police Commissariat on 6 April to monitor the situation. A few plainclothes police officers had also been deployed nearby, where they took photographs and videos and prevented human rights defenders from bringing food to Saray.

In 2023, the Supreme Court upheld incitement convictions against Saray and nine other activists in relation to peaceful gatherings calling for the release of then-imprisoned union leader Rong Chhun. The lower court had sentenced Saray in October 2021 to 20 months’ imprisonment with six months of his sentence suspended for a period of two years, and fined him 2 million riel (US$500).

Mondulkiri provincial court on Monday questioned NGO rights group Adhoc official and four Bunong natives after land brokers and fellow villagers filed a defamation and incitement complaint against them. The complaint was made after the suspects submitted evidence of chopped trees and encroachment by the plaintiffs, made up of land brokers and a few villagers.

According to the February 3, 2024 court summons, deputy prosecutor Seav Ngy Chhorn ordered the five people, Bi Vanny, Adhoc provincial coordinator, and minority indigenous people Chen Vanna, Sreng San, Rouen Heng, and Ngin Channa, to present themselves at the Mondulkiri provincial court from March 1 to 4, 2024.

The plaintiffs, who made the complaint, consist of Ploeun Pyin, Nhev Mao, and Soeun Sam, where one or two are known to the villagers as they are from the same village.

Vanny, who was in court on Monday, said the prosecutor asked him questions relating to the information​ and evidence he submitted about the alleged forest crime and land encroachment at the indigenous people’s land in Poulong village of Sen Monorom city’s Romnea commune.

He said community residents had requested his organization’s help to submit the evidence in court to seek justice as they lacked knowledge of the law.

The evidence was submitted in March 2023, following which the court asked him to appear in November that year. At the time, he said, he told the court that he was only doing what the villagers had requested of him.

On November 20, 2023, a week after Vanny appeared in court, the plaintiffs sued him for defamation and incitement to discrimination, which he denied being involved.

Vanny asked the court to drop all charges against him because he was only providing information to the prosecutor and had no intention of violating the plaintiffs’ rights or harming them.

“We ask the prosecutor to investigate the facts of the case. I hope that the court is an independent institution, a place where justice is upheld, to decide if there was an encroachment, and if it’s related to the three individuals who filed the complaint against me and the four indigenous people,” Vanny said.

He urged the court to quickly investigate and fairly decide on the case. “We are going to court because we all want justice,” he said.

Relating his experience, Chen Vanna, who was questioned on Monday, said the prosecutor questioned him about the land encroachment evidence, which was submitted to court. He said the evidence was submitted because they want to prevent deforestation.

“I answered that I want to intervene to protect our natural resources [forest],” he said.

The prosecutor questioned whether the community land had indeed been encroached, to which Vanna replied, “They [plaintiffs] cut it and if the court doesn’t believe, they can go and see it for themselves.”

“I am not the only one, the people of Poulong village have put in a [petition] everywhere to prevent the community land from being cut down and taken over by the [plaintiffs] as their own land. We want it retained as state property, a common property where we have a forest. But when I tried to stop this, they said I defamed them,” Vanna said.

According to him, the plaintiffs are also residents of Poulong village and the purpose of clearing the community land was because it would be included as indigenous people’s land before claiming that it was “an old plantation”.

“I ask people who are competent to help us preserve the forest and natural resources. The area is a public forest, it’s not owned by anyone. I do not want that land [for me], I just want us all to use it together,” he added.

Similarly, another suspect, Bunong native Ngin Channa, felt that the accusation was unfair because the land dispute happened in the community in Poulong village.

She told the court she was not involved in any incitement, but all the people in the Poulong village need to leave the community land so that it can survive.

“Because we, the Bunong people, go in there to collect resin and vegetables. There are also a lot of cattle there,” Channa said. If 500 to 1,000 hectares of the forest are cut down, there will be no forest, she shared. The trees are like fruits to the community, for instance, resin, which is available during dry and rainy seasons.

When the prosecutor asked who confiscated the land brokers’ machine used to cut the trees, she admitted that the community did. The machine was sent to the community representative and the commune forestry administration.

She said the community people volunteered to protect the land from being lost.

“I would like to request the court in Mondulkiri to find the perpetrators, as in who is behind those who dare to do this [clear the land]. There are efforts to prevent [encroachment] [via continuous patrolling], but how can they [land brokers] still do that?” Channa asked.

She requested the government and the relevant authorities to look into the issue, adding that the​ evidence has been submitted to the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

“Please intervene in this matter so that there is no further encroachment and please drop the charges so that no one is summoned again. Every day we have nothing. We are farmers, so it [the case] disrupts our activity and we cannot do any other work. I’m stuck with a bank loan,” Channa said.

According to Channa, she is now looking for additional evidence to submit to the court, asserting that encroachment is still ongoing.

Mondulkiri provincial deputy governor Cheak Mengheang told CamboJA on Wednesday afternoon that there was daily encroachment, but that it cannot be proven currently. He asked that the information be checked first because it was unclear.

Romnea commune chief Phy Ngouk could not be reached for comment.

NGO rights group Licadho operation director Am Sam Ath believed that citizens who understand and dare to file evidence relating to the protection of collective property, community or state property should be encouraged. They should not be prosecuted for any crime.

But if they are prosecuted, it breaks the spirit of the people who participate in the protection of the environment.

“It is akin to a restriction on the rights of civil society who work to protect the common interests of the forest, natural resources, and the environment,” Sam Ath said. “If this problem persists, no one will dare report problems at the local or community level,” he said.

He also called on the court officials to drop charges against Adhoc’s Vanny and the four local residents who are devoted to protecting the forests.

“I understand that when there is a complaint, the court must summon the people for questioning, but hopefully it will look at all the issues, and the rights and freedom of people,” Sam Ath said.

Deputy prosecutor Seav Ngy Chhorn told CamboJA that the court has yet to decide what is the next procedure​ after it finished questioning relevant parties involved in the case. The court needs to further question witnesses as both parties have submitted additional evidence.

Early this February, the ruling CPP also filed a lawsuit against outspoken human rights group Adhoc Soeng Senkaruna for allegedly making a comment believed to provoke unrest and incite hatred against them. The comment was also allegedly intended to affect the Senate election on February 25, 2024, according to the complaint published by Fresh News.

In the complaint, CPP asked the court to consider their request to indict and sentence Soeng Senkaruna in accordance with the law. A compensation of two billion riel (approximately $500,000) has also been demanded from him.

Political analyst Em Sovannara opined that in Cambodia today, the “justice system is only available for the influential and the wealthy”. He alleged that “ordinary people, advocates, and those who do social work seem to face the most problems”, which he sees as an unfavorable task for the democratic environment in Cambodia.

“In general, if we look at the characteristics of civil society organizations, advocates, activists and political parties, they seem to be shrinking. There is no space for political freedom and freedom of expression. The Cambodian society lacks a system of justice that gives us confidence,” he said.

In this aspect, he would like to see a return to the principles of democracy prescribed under the Constitution and by the United Nations Charter and Paris Peace Agreements. They clearly state the principles of multi-party liberal democracy where Cambodians can seek justice.

He added that if there is only a theoretical system of the policy, but without practical application, Cambodians would be affected by the injustice in a country that practices democracy.

Samrong Tbong Community members this morning reported injuries stemming from an altercation with authorities over the filling-in of the Boeung Tamok lake area in Phnom Penh. The lake has been parcelled off by the state and given away to politically connected institutions and individuals over the past several years.

Members of Samrong Tbong Community gathered at the area yesterday and this morning to protest the state’s excavation of the community’s land. Community members are facing legal complaints in at least four cases that have been opened since 2022 due to their land activism.

The most recent flare-up of the long-running conflict began yesterday, when three excavators accompanied by around 10 security guards were used to attempt to begin clearing land occupied by the community. Community members gathered and halted the work, after which police officers arrived to observe the community. The clearing resumed this morning with a far heavier police presence, as around 200 authorities – including around 50 police officers and the deputy governor of Khan Praek Pnov – arrived at the site to oversee the clearing. Around 100 community members gathered in the area to protest, who were photographed and filmed by police and plainclothes authorities.

Community members reported that at least one child and two women, one of whom is pregnant, were injured as a result of today’s altercation. Some people were sent to a nearby hospital for treatment, while other community members reported being forced to leave the area of the dispute.

This week’s clash followed a notice dated 18 February 2024 from the Praek Pnov district administration, which claimed that the disputed land is state land and instructed community members to cease residential activities and co-operate with the land clearing.

The Samrong Tbong Community and its 76 households have been settled in their current area since 1996. The community has long been at risk of losing their land as the government has parcelled off Boeung Tamok lake to private companies and individuals. So far, the government has given away around 80 parcels of land atop the lake, covering nearly 75% of the total area of what was once the capital’s largest lake.

Chea Chan, union leader at the Wing Star Shoes factory, who was just elected into that post, was caught and charged with “conspiracy to commit theft” for an incident that allegedly happened two years ago.

He is said not to be involved in the case. Activists assert that his detention is meant to “pressure” union members to disband the independent union in the factory.

Prior to Chan’s arrest, an election for union board members was held in the factory where he and nine others were voted in, according to a statement by the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Union (CATU).

After Chan informed Wing Star Shoes about forming a union, the company sent warnings to him and the other union leaders, persuading them to cancel the union, but they refused to comply.

On February 14, Chan was detained at work by a group of Kampong Speu provincial police who allegedly failed to produce a summons or any proof to support the arrest.

Yang Sophorn, president of CATU, said the arrest of the union leader was a serious violation of the union rights, along with the absence of evidence or a summons.

“The company conspired with the police and called Chan to the stockroom saying someone wanted to meet him before five policemen caught him. They arrested him without a summons,” said Sophorn.

She said the factory allegedly sued him for conspiring to steal but the charge was allegedly “concocted with the police” as Chan and the others do not know anything about the two-year-old theft at the factory.

The company was not keen on an independent union, hence the reason they discouraged workers from starting one, she added.

“Yesterday, the court charged Chan for conspiring to steal, [an incident] which happened two years ago, not involving Chan. This is the real reason why the company wants to discourage my union leader,” said Sophorn.

In fact, two representatives from Wing Star Shoes met CATU to discuss the union issue as they failed to convince Chan to abort its setting up. “They gave us money to change his mind. When we refused to accept their request, they detained my union leader instead.”

Chan’s wife, Chhay Chanra, 35, told CamboJA that arresting and charging her husband was unfair because her husband did not commit any crime.

“They arrested my husband without a summons, which is a violation of workers’ and union rights. He worked there for almost 10 years. Why did they do that,” she asked.

She is also concerned about her family as they have three children and Chan is the sole breadwinner.

“This is unacceptable. I want the company to withdraw the lawsuit and the court to release him as soon as possible,” said Chanra.

Pheng Siphoan, Chief of Administrative Secretariat and Spokesman of Kampong Speu Provincial Court, said Chan has been sent to Kampong Speu provincial prison after being charged under Articles 29, 353 and 356 of the Penal Code.

According to Article 356 of the Penal Code, theft is punishable by six months to three years in prison and a fine of one million to six million riels.

“The court questioned him on February 17 and sent him to prison yesterday [Sunday],” he told CamboJA.

When asked why the court only questioned Chan two years after the alleged theft, Siphoan replied, “this is the court procedure”.

The Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training 2023 annual report stressed that factories should respect the Labor Law and resolve labor conflicts where more than 8,000 cases have been recorded.

Chek Borin, director of the Kampong Speu ​provincial Department of Labor, said if Chan’s case is related to the violation of worker’s rights, his department will intervene. However, the company sued Chan under the criminal law, so he is not able to get involved.

“Had he [Chan] informed us regarding a labor case, we would have intervened but this is related to a criminal case,” said Borin.

The ministry report also noted that the government is open and encourages the right to organization and unions which is in accordance with the Labor Law and international labor standards.

In 2022, a report by Human Rights Watch mentioned that Cambodia does not have a designated labor court despite the Cambodian labor law stipulating the need for one. Owing to that, the Arbitration Council is the only body tasked to handle alternative dispute resolution for labor-related issues.

Meanwhile, CATU’s Sophorn raised concerns about union rights being trampled on a daily basis. “I can say the condition of union rights now is quite bad, even though we have special protection under the labor law but in reality it is the opposite. Our employees don’t even have the right to negotiate [with factory owners],” she lamented.

CamboJA reached out to Wing Star Shoes for comment via telephone, using a number provided on the company website but the person who picked up said he no longer works with the company.

Two days after it opened to the public, district authorities ordered Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT) to immediately desist their photo exhibition themed “House and Life” in a restaurant in Chbar Ampov on the afternoon of February 25. No reason was given for the shutdown order of the 10-day exhibition planned till March 4.

“The owner of the restaurant told us that the authorities instructed them to dismantle [the exhibits] and stop [the exhibition],” said STT executive director Soeung Saran. “We don’t know what is the reason for the shutdown.”

However, the authorities’ act is a violation of STT’s rights as a civil society organization and an abuse of power by pressuring the restaurant owner to take down the displays, Saran said. The requirement for NGOs to apply for a permit to hold an exhibition is not stipulated by the law.

“I think it affects the freedom of our work, and such impromptu decisions should be fully discussed with stakeholders,” Saran said, adding that he wants to see the authorities “open the door” for civil society organizations to freely organize events.

They should be more understanding towards the common purpose of the work before deciding to stop the exhibition, he remarked.

“Because of this, it affects, firstly, the performance of the institution and, secondly, the reputation of the leadership [Prime Minister Hun Manet] who is trying to reform inaction and persecutions,” he added.

Chbar Ampov district governor Cheng Monyra could not be reached for comment, while Niroth commune chief Tep Prommony claimed that she was busy and in a meeting before hanging up the phone. Prommony did not pick up follow-up calls despite numerous attempts to reach her on Monday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Niroth commune police chief Hor Sylihov declined to comment as to why the authorities instructed the restaurant owner to stop the exhibition or if they had received any complaints. Instead, he referred the reporter to the restaurant owner.

However, Sorn Bormey, manager of Champei Garden Restaurant, declined to comment.

On February 23, 2024, STT launched a photo exhibition showcasing the life of urban poor communities, which revolved around issues of land insecurity and resettlements, lack of pre-arranged services and infrastructure and forced evictions.

The exhibition also highlighted the present condition of city lakes, where several have been filled up, and the environmental impact as a result of their alleged development by companies and public figures.

The event aimed to create awareness to the public, and enable stakeholders, including urban poor communities and the government, to work together to find solutions and promote the right to affordable housing.

The Phnom Penh Appeal Court this morning upheld the 2021 decision of the Kampong Chhnang Provincial Court convicting three Lor Peang Community members of “obstruction of public official” and “intentionally causing damage” as part of a long-running land conflict. The three community members are Nhem Nhuen (also known as Snguon Nhuen), Reach Seima and Pul Sorn.

Lor Peang Community has resisted community members’ land being encroached by KDC International, a company owned by Chea Kheng, the wife of former Minister of Mines and Energy Suy Sem. The charges stem from an incident in 2013, when KDC International began establishing borders over the disputed land in Kampong Chhnang province. Members of Lor Peang Community arrived at the site to protest, during which a temporary security guard hut was destroyed.

Almost eight years later, the provincial court convicted the three Lor Peang Community members under Articles 503 and 410 of the Criminal Code. All received suspended sentences of 2 years and 6 months and were ordered to pay compensation of 2.8 million riel (approximately US$700), a decision that was today upheld by the Appeal Court.

None of the three community members were ordered to pre-trial detention pending final appeal. One of the defendants, Pul Sorn, has since died.

The regional Court of Appeal in Battambang province on Thursday questioned three villagers from around Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, who were accused of incitement for allegedly posting an Apsara National Authority notice on social media.

Last year, Apsara authority filed a complaint against three residents Luy Socheat, Phan Salin and Sok Pov for incitement for allegedly posting the notice on the removal of illegal structures in Ampil commune’s Bakorng village last year. The three also urged other villagers to join a protest.

Some 100 villagers traveled by bus to the regional Appeal Court to protest on Thursday, calling court officials to drop all charges against three residents in Bakorng district.

The case against the three is an appeal by Apsara authority after a decision to hold their case by Siem Reap provincial deputy prosecutor Lay Nisay on November 30, according to the court warrant obtained by CamboJA. But, the court did not reveal a specific reason.

Sok Pov told CamboJA that prosecutor Kong Chamkhemrin questioned him regarding the information posted on Facebook in relation to Apsara authory’s notice to remove illegal structures of villagers.

“The court allowed us to return home after questioning, and he [Kong Chankhemrin] said [we] don’t need to be worried about an arrest,” he said. “I didn’t commit what they [Apsara authority] accused me of because I shared the information.”

Battambang Court of Appeal spokesperson Teang Sambo confirmed that three villages were questioned for incitement at the court but declined to comment further. She asked that questions be referred to the spokesperson for prosecutor Ream Chanmony. However, the spokesperson declined to comment.

Chea Kosal, one of villagers who came to support the three, said the accusation by Apsara authority is “unreasonable” as they had only shared information, which is not the same as incitement.

“The accusation is unfair because sharing information isn’t an offense. We are angry, which is why we have come here to support them,” Kosal said.

He called on the Battambang Court of Appeal to uphold the provincial court decision, which had correctly decided to hold the case.

Local NGO Licadho rights supervisor In Kongchet expressed disappointment that Apsara authority took the case to a higher level after the provincial court’s decision.

“They are not guilty of posting the notification letters of Apsara National Authority. It is like sharing information to their community, so it’s not an offense [or] did not commit a felony,” he said.

“[If] Apsara authority continues to sue them, it will cause them to live in fear due to the court process,” Konchet said. “It also affects their livelihood as they have to travel to court.”

He urged Apsara authority to stop suing the villagers and consider settling the issue.

Apsara National Authority deputy director-general Long Kosal could not be reached for comment.

A group of mixed armed forces including gendarmes and police officers accompanied by forestry administration officials mobilised this morning to secure disputed land in Preah Vihear province, resulting in the use of live ammunition and arrests.

A number of villagers have reportedly been arrested and taken to Preah Vihear provincial capital. Their current location is unknown.

Villagers reported that mixed forces armed with automatic rifles had entered the area shortly before dawn, and were accompanied by tractors to clear the disputed land. Fearful of property destruction and forced evictions, villagers gathered to demand the forces leave the area. A confrontation ensued in which a video captured live ammunition being shot repeatedly by authorities as well as the use of a smoke grenade.

The land dispute in question involves Seladamex Co., Ltd., and impacts families from neighbouring Mrech, Srayang Tboung, and Kdak villages as well as families who have more recently migrated to the area.

Seladamex had been granted an Economic Land Concession in March 2011 in Srayang and Phnum Tbaeng Pir communes in Preah Vihear’s Kuleaen district. The concession led to land conflicts with hundreds of families who were already living in the area. In 2022, representatives of 131 impacted families reported that their belongings and crops had been destroyed by authorities on behalf of the company.

Twenty-nine people were charged by the Preah Vihear Provincial Court on 8 March 2024 with “clearing forestland and enclosing it to claim for ownership” under Article 97(6) of the Law on Forestry. Four of the 29 people charged were released on bail, and the remaining 25 have been sent to pre-trial detention in Preah Vihear provincial prison. They include 13 men and 12 women.

The group was arrested earlier this month after mixed armed forces accompanied by forestry administration officials entered a disputed area with tractors intended to clear the land. Authorities fired live ammunition, used a smoke grenade, and arrested villagers.

The charges are the latest development in a longstanding land dispute involving Seladamex Co., Ltd., which affects families from Mrech, Srayang Tboung, and Kdak villages as well as families who have more recently migrated to the area. Seladamex was granted an Economic Land Concession in 2011 in Srayang and Phnum Tbaeng Pir communes in Kuleaen district.

The Tbong Khmum Appeal Court yesterday suspended a two-year prison sentence given to four Srae Prang Community members, who were accused of intentional damage for blocking a private company from clearing their land.

The four community members are part of group of nine defendants who are alleged to have blocked machinery belonging to Harmony Win Investment Co. Ltd. from clearing their land in 2017 and 2020. They were convicted of intentional damage and sentenced to two years in prison in 2021 by a provincial court. The Tbong Khmum Appeal Court upheld the verdict in 2022, but the Supreme Court sent the case back to the appeal court in August 2023.

On Thursday 15 February 2024, the appeal court upheld the sentences of the four community members and suspended their two-year prison sentences. The community members are Chhork Chhey, Khem Sokcheang, Pum Pich and Veun Ver.

Srae Prang Community in Tbong Khmum has fought a decade-long dispute over their community farmland with Harmony Win Investment, which is a Chinese-owned rubber company. The company has routinely blocked village residents’ access to their farmland and cleared it, leading to frequent protests from community members.

On 7 February 2024, provincial courts convicted two well-known activists in separate cases, continuing the trend of judicial harassment against human rights advocates in Cambodia.

The Ratanakiri Provincial Court earlier today announced its verdict convicting environmental activist Chhorn Phalla of defamation, insult and incitement to commit a felony under Articles 305, 502 and 495 of the Cambodian Criminal Code. The court sentenced Phalla to one year in prison and imposed a 10 million riel (around US$2,500) fine.

Phalla is an outspoken environmental activist who has been repeatedly prosecuted for his advocacy for the protection of natural resources and monitoring of deforestation. Phalla had been imprisoned since September 2021 for criminal charges arising from two other separate cases. Both cases were also based on his activism. Phalla was finally released from prison in October 2023 after his convictions in the other two cases were overturned, only to be again convicted today.

The Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court also today announced a verdict convicting political opposition official Chao Veasna of incitement to commit a felony and incitement to discriminate under Articles 494, 495 and 496 of the Cambodian Criminal Code. It is unclear at this time which person or group of people Veasna was found to have discriminated against contrary to the Criminal Code.

The court sentenced Veasna to three years in prison, imposed a 6 million riel (around US$1,500) fine, and ordered Veasna to pay 80 million riel (around US$20,000) in compensation. The court also suspended Veasna’s right to vote and his right to stand for election for five years.

Veasna, a Steering Committee member of the opposition Candlelight Party and Poipet District President, was arrested in July 2023 after allegedly posting a photograph of his spoiled National Election ballot on social media. This arrest came shortly after Veasna was released from Correctional Centre 3 (also known as Trapeang Phlong prison) in February 2022, having served a five-year sentence for multiple other convictions related to the exercise of his political rights. Veasna was at that time an elected commune chief and member of the former opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).

Kuy indigenous community in Bos Village and Preus Ka’ak Village, M’lou Prey II Commune, Chheb District in Preah Vihear Province urge the authorities to help them seek justice after being allegedly assaulted by a group of men. The villagers suspect they are sugarcane plantation workers who destroyed their farmland.

Community representative, Pean Sophat, told CamboJA that on February 11, 2024, villagers came together to stop three tractors known to belong to local Chheang Kong Nov from plowing the area which the villagers had long cultivated.

Sophat said when they arrived at construction site 11 to meet Kong Nov, his people allegedly closed the gate and assaulted the villagers. Three villagers were injured.

Another villager, Soeun Tha, a 30-year-old indigenous man, said Kong Nov “always” plows people’s land, so this was not the first time. Hence, the reason behind the villagers’ decision to stop the activity and get answers. Instead, Kong Nov’s team used violence on the villagers.

“When we arrived at the site, he ordered his team to close the door and use violence against us. He grabbed another villager’s collar and also beat three people,” Tha recounted.

According to Tha, the government allocated the land that was cultivated by the villagers to a Chinese firm in 2011. When the Chinese company collapsed in 2019, the locals continued to cultivate on the land again, they are planting potatoes and rice. But recently, a group of men with Kong Nov started plowing the land to plant potatoes and abused villagers.

“It is wrong and unfair, and the authorities in the province are not making any effort to help us,” said Tha.

In January, five Chinese companies signed 50-year lease contracts over the state land. The Cambodia-registered companies plan to operate sugarcane plantations and other agro-industrial crops on the land measuring 20,179 hectares in total.

However, Tha said those who came did not have a permit or a letter to prove that they had permission to clear the land.

The villagers are not interested in opposing the company, he added. “We just want to negotiate a solution because we have been farming on the land for a long time.”

Chief of M’lou Prey II commune Kan Sovankea told CamboJA that the local authority was aware of the matter, adding that it would be transferred to the district authority for intervention. He could not resolve the issue as it is “beyond his capacity”.

He explained that the people from his commune have been farming on the company’s land known as Hengfu group although the latter stopped planting in 2019. But, he did not know the exact number of families who had been doing that.

“Now I mediate for them [with Kong Nov]. In fact, the villagers have planted crops on the company land and want to continue to do more,” said Sovankea.

​The villagers have filed a police report following the attack, said 37-year-old Nab Noeun, adding that they asked the commune authorities to help secure justice for those with land but are now “disturbed by unidentified people”.

“I have filed a complaint but I don’t know the outcome yet. It is unfair because our land has been used for a long time. There are plants there but they have come to plow and destroy our crops,” she added.

While the villagers do not know who the person was, she believed that there must be a “powerful person” behind the attack, as they dared to harm them.

“Maybe there was someone behind him. If not, he would never have dared to do so and the authorities are still silent,” she said.

There are 14 ethnic groups and 155 indigenous communities in Cambodia, according to a study on the demographic and socioeconomic state of indigenous peoples in the country published in 2021 by the Ministry of Planning and the Ministry of Rural Development.

A new code of environment and natural resources was enacted by the National Assembly in June 2023.

Another resident, Khat Sisophan, hoped that the government would stop giving away land used by the people to plant their crops to private companies, while asking them to withdraw the land from Rui Feng chinese sugarcane company.

He said villagers need farmlands to support their families as their livelihoods are in dire condition and they are in debt.

“The people of this village are facing difficulties and aren’t happy nowadays. It is not fair [that land is being privatized for companies].

“I want to see the new government reform the law and respect human rights, including those who live in remote areas, like us. Without farmlands, we would not be able to live comfortably,” Sisophan said.

Deputy Provincial Governor of Preah Vihear Province Nop Vuthy urged people to file a complaint with the authorities with regards to the violence. That is, “as long as they have evidence,” Vuthy told CamboJA.

He said Preah Vihear provincial authorities made a contract with villagers to “make them understand” that the land had been given to private companies.

The contract also mentioned that they should “stop planting on the investment land” but, “every year and every season”, villagers continue to grow crops on the land.

“We have given it to Chinese companies,” Vuthy said. “[Villagers] always say [it’s their land]. Obviously it’s not like that. The land is already registered as a state land.

“Now, we have a state land commission. We’re investigating the history of the land, whether they really own the land and if they have adequate documents. The provincial authority will take action accordingly.”

According to Article 25 of the Land Law, indigenous community land consists of lands where communities have established settlements and engaged in traditional agriculture. The lands are not only those regularly cultivated, but also those which are reserved for seasonal farming and are recognized by the administrative authorities.

Poek Sophorn, executive director of Ponlok Khmer, said the authorities should help the indigenous people acquire justice and calm the situation as they have been cultivating the land for a long time.

Indigenous communities are protected by the law and possess the right to access land.

“But the authorities don’t seem to care much about the people’s rights and they might lose their right to the land.

“Why not help them to register their land? At least help them secure land ownership for private use, this would be fairer,” said Sophorn.

Four indigenous Kuy residents of M’lou Prey II commune, Chheb district, have been summoned by the Preah Vihear provincial court for questioning on the obstruction of the company’s development, and inciting people to illegally occupy state land.

Last week, three villagers of M’lou Prey II commune were assaulted in a land dispute. The indigenous community is seeking justice from the authority following the assault by the group believed to be sugarcane plantation workers.

Four days after the conflict on February 11, M’lou Prey II community representative, Seun Tha, 31, received the summons issued by the commune police. Tha said he is very disappointed, noting that indigenous people are the victims as they lost their land and survive on low incomes.

In the summons reviewed by CamboJA, four community representatives will be questioned by Preah Vihear court prosecutor on February 27. The summons states that the court will question them for allegedly obstructing the company’s work and for inciting people to illegally occupy state land on January 16, 2024.

The summons did not name the company but people believe that it is the Chinese company which was granted land for development from the​ government in 2011.

Tha called it an injustice against indigenous peoples, who often suffered abuse by those in power, and the law. He hopes the government will reconsider the plight of indigenous people and that the court would render them justice.

“It is very unfair for indigenous people like us. We just cultivated our land and now we are being issued a summons,” Tha said. “I hope the court will drop the charges against the three of us and other community representatives.”

Nop Vuthy, spokesperson of Preah Vihear province, told CamboJA that the company was suing them, and claimed that the provincial authorities had tried several times to resolve the case out of court. However, the case was beyond the jurisdiction of the provincial authorities, he added.

“We mediated out of court, but now the company sued them. This case is not under the control of the local authorities,” Vuthy said.

Another community member, who is also a Kuy native, Pean Sophat, said they did nothing wrong as the people came to cultivate their land, not the company land.

“We oppose [the summons] because the land that the company is developing is not state land, it is our land which we have been cultivating for a long time,” he added.

The national policy on indigenous peoples’ development in 2009 recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples to land, traditions, culture and customs. The 2001 Land Law recognizes the rights of indigenous communities to their collective use of land.

Although Cambodia has a policy of recognizing the rights of indigenous peoples, there is little protection for their interests. Since 2001, only around five indigenous communities have received collective title deeds.

Preah Vihear provincial court spokesperson, Chum Kaniya could not be reached for comment.

Ratanakiri Provincial Court has sentenced Theng Savoeun, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community (CCFC), and two associates, Nhel Pheap and Thann Hach, to five years jail for “plotting and incitement”. However, the sentences have been suspended, according to court spokesperson Keo Pheakdey.

Pheakdey, also a deputy prosecutor at the court, said apart from the suspension of the sentence, there was no imposition of fines, adding that the court would give detailed verdicts for each individual later.

“I can tell you that they [Theng Savoeun and his colleagues] were sentenced by the court to five years jail, but their sentences were suspended with no fine for the crime,” he said.

In a quick response, Savoeun said the judgment was “unfair to him”, stating that he would file an appeal against the decision.

“As one of the victims, I will file an appeal with the Tbong Khmum Appeal Court against the verdict of the Ratanakiri Provincial Court,” he said. “The sentence is unfair to all of us because we have no purpose or intention to plot and incite, or cause serious social chaos. We work professionally and abide by the laws of the country.”

On May 18, 2023, Savoeun and 16 other CCFC members were arrested by Kratie provincial police at the behest of the Ratanakiri provincial police.

Nhem Sam Oeun, Ratanakiri governor, previously said Savoeun and his group were arrested for carrying out “suspicious” work in the province. Fourteen individuals were released, but three – Savoeun, Pheap, and Hach – were taken to the Ratanakiri Provincial Court.

Am Sam Ath, LICADHO operations director, who provided lawyers for the defendants, described the decision as a pressure on civil society organizations, adding that while the jail term has been suspended, Savoeun still remained under the court’s pressure.

Expressing frustration over the decision, Sam Ath felt that the government “should stop using the judiciary to place pressure on civil societies, which undermined their right to freedom of expression”.

“This is a pressure on civil society leaders, especially Savoeun, Pheap and Hach,” he remarked. If one were to look at them, one would see that they are working for the people, for the benefit of farmers. Therefore, there is no crime, and there should be no accusations against them, he said. “It’s [the verdict] a bad message for civil society. Even though the sentence was suspended, he [Savoeun] has still been convicted.”

He said the “pressure from the judiciary” also affects the activities of other civil society organizations. The government should drop any charges against civil societies “in whatever form” so that they can do their job transparently and independently.

On May 22, the Ratanakiri Provincial Court placed Savoeun, Pheap and Hach under pre-trial detention on two charges.

The arrests were made after a CCFC training session, attended by 39 staff members, from May 14 to 17 in Ratanakiri. Following the program on May 17, the participants who were heading back to Phnom Penh had their bus stopped by Kratie provincial authorities, allegedly upon the request of the Ratanakiri provincial authorities.

However, the Ratanakiri court released Savoeun, Pheap and Hach on bail. Later, Savoeun posted a message on his Facebook page which read, “Returning with both responsibility and additional obligations.”

The release by the court occurred after Savoeun issued a letter and video “acknowledging his guilt” on the alleged charge of conducting a “peasant revolution.”

More than 100 garment workers at Shengbo Garment Factory Ltd in Kampong Speu province protested on​​​ Saturday, demanding the reinstatement of two workers, who were fired after their election as union leaders in the factory.

Seak Thong, vice president of the independent union​, called his termination by the factory as unfair. Independent unions protect the interest and rights of workers, and prevent them from being discriminated against by factory owners, he said. “I’m sad that I cannot be with the workers anymore as I have lost my job for no reason.”

Chinese-owned Shengbo Garment, which produces women’s clothing for Spanish brand MNG and Italy’s Calliope for export to Europe, employs over 700 workers. It began operation in March 2023.

This is the second protest in the factory. The first time was on February 2, this year, where nearly 200 workers protested in front of the factory, according to Thong, who

claimed that the factory administration was aware of the election.

He was contacted by the administration, which urged him to “resign” from the independent union and join the factory-managed union​ with the bosses. He was told that he would enjoy increased benefits from the factory, but he declined the offer.

“I refused them and he [administration] threatened me that if I did not agree, I [might become] unemployed. He could not guarantee [my job] because [he said] if he had known earlier [about the union], he would have ended the contract faster.”

Thon Thy said on January 31, 2024 the assistant of line five told him that the president of the factory called him and Thong to meet at the office and told them “not to renew the employment contract”.

“I can’t accept this because I didn’t do anything wrong. This clearly shows union discrimination in the factory​. We had already informed the factory owner about the election but they refused to accept an independent union.”

On January 9, 2024, the elected members directly informed the company of the election result through administration director Am Mony, but it was rejected. The same day, the members informed them again via post.

Two days later, the elected members applied for registration at the Department of Labor Dispute of the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training.

However, the company only informed Thy and Thong on January 31 not to renew their employment contract.

Yet, Thy hopes that the factory owner would reinstate them, and not discriminate against local unions in the factory. They also asked relevant ministries to check on the enforcement of the labor law in the factory.

“I hope the ministry and the factory owner will resolve this problem by accepting us and other elected independent union [members] to work in the factory like normal to protect workers’ interests.

“We also urge the factory owner to respect the Kingdom’s labor law and union rights, and not harass the workers.” Mony, administrator of Shengbo factory, told CamboJA on Monday morning​ that protests will no longer be held. “All workers will return to work as normal.”

He also denied the workers’ allegations of union discrimination. “We don’t discriminate against unions. The termination of the contracts was a result of reduced production. “

When asked to reveal the name of the buyer, which apparently reduced orders, he declined to answer. “I can’t say the name as it’s confidential.”

Touch Soeu, president of the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia (FTUWKC)​ said factories commit “serious mistakes by dismissing workers without prior notice”, which is illegal and discriminatory against post-election free trade unions.

Soeu alleged that Shengbo “always terminates workers” when they learn about employees who stand as candidates in union elections to protect workers’ interests. “It isn’t the first time the Shengbo factory threatened [workers] of unions, which aren’t under the factory.”

Ministry spokesman Kata Orn acknowledged that a request to form and register a union was received from Shengbo workers. On January 7, 2024, 10 union members were elected to form a union, in which Thon Thy was elected as union president, Seak Thong vice president and Preng Chealy as secretary.

On January 11,2024, the union submitted a registration form to the Dispute Department. On January 25, 2024, the department received a letter from Shengbo stating that the company was against the registration of a free trade union as the leadership, founder and secretary had “resigned from the union”.

On January 1, 2024, the ministry’s Fourth Labor Dispute Office received a complaint from Thy and Thong, the elected union president and vice president, respectively.

Orn said employers will provide information regarding the issue on February 13, 2024, he said, adding that the case is being processed.

“The ministry mediated and explained the union side and the workers. So far, the workers have not protested and are back to work. Separately, the ministry continues to coordinate and resolve the issues of the two [Thy and Thong].”

Khun Tharo, program manager for the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights (CENTRAL), said this was the second time Shengbo factory has persecuted independent unions during nomination and post-election stage.

Due to the continued persecution of workers and suppression of workers’ rights, the new union members initiated the idea of ​​forming an independent union in the factory to protect workers’ interests.

“This is the second time the company has terminated employment contracts after an independent union was formed in the factory. The first was in November 2023 and the worker has not returned to work in the factory yet.”

“It also highlights the discrimination against local unions, which are protected by union privileges, and the factory’s lack of respect for labor rights in the Kingdom,” Tharo said.

In November 2023, ex-union leader Roeun Kolap was fired after she joined the independent union. Her labor dispute over her dismissal is pending at the Kampong Speu Provincial Court, he added.

Around 12 youth and environmental activists and a foreign national were taken into custody and questioned for several hours by local Phnom Penh and immigration authorities after peacefully advocating for the preservation of a coastal island in Koh Kong province.

The activists were exercising, holding banners and taking photographs on Phnom Penh riverside this morning while being monitored by non-uniformed security personnel. As they were leaving the area, Daun Penh district security guards forced them onto a truck and took them to the district office for questioning.

The authorities took them in because they were holding banners reading, “Sunday for Koh Kong Island”. All 13 people were held and questioned all afternoon before being released around 6 pm.

Youth and environmental activists have consistently advocated for the Cambodian government to protect the Koh Kong Krao island off the coast of Koh Kong province. The island is slated for development, including a special economic zone developed by ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat.

Environmental activists were harassed, held for one day and blocked from cycling from Koh Kong to Phnom Penh in 2020 as part of their campaign to “Save Koh Kong Krao.”

Hundreds of Siem Reap residents marched to the provincial hall this morning to submit a petition asking for intervention from the national government and UNESCO to stop newly enforced restrictions on buildings and repairs implemented by the APSARA Authority, the government agency which oversees the Angkor Archaeological Park.

Around 500 people from Puok district’s Khnat commune and Siem Reap city’s Tuek Vil commune marched with banners to Siem Reap Provincial Hall to submit a petition asking Prime Minister Hun Manet, former Prime Minister Hun Sen, and the United Nations agency UNESCO to stop APSARA from causing fear and preventing any new construction or renovations in Khnat commune, which the petition says is very far from the Angkor structure.

The residents were temporarily blocked by around 20 military police and Puok district governor Sin Chanthol, who wanted only 4 to 5 people to submit the petition, but villagers refused and continued their march to the provincial hall, reaching the hall’s main entrance with their banners. One of the banners held by a community member said, “We must not allow the Apsara Authority to continue to oppress our community.”

The petition, which was accepted by Siem Reap Governor Prak Sophoan, also reads, “From this day forward, we do not recognise APSARA authority, and in addition, all of us do not allow APSARA to come manage us anymore.” Residents left the provincial hall after submitting the petition.

The Apsara Authority, in conjunction with various government ministries, have overseen the mass eviction of at least ten thousand people living in the Angkor Archaeological Park since 2022, relocating them to underdeveloped and inadequate relocation sites where families are provided little to no services or employment opportunities.

The government claims the evictions have been spurred by UNESCO and has said that UNESCO spoke of revoking the temple complex’s heritage status if park residents were allowed to remain on the site. UNESCO has claimed in response to research published by Amnesty International that it has not called for “population displacements,” but also did not acknowledge the government's actions as forced evictions.

Former Prime Minister Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party on Monday sued the spokesperson of human rights group ADHOC, accusing him of defamation in his recent criticism of the ruling party’s legal actions toward a leading opposition figure.

Party lawyers demanded 2 billion riel (US$500,000) in damages in the lawsuit against Soeng Senkaruna filed in Phnom Penh Municipal Court.

The complaint signed by three lawyers for the Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, said that Senkaruna commented last week to The Cambodia Daily that the party has used its influence with the courts to put pressure on its political opponents.

The lawsuit is the latest to target a critic of powerful Cambodian politicians. In November, a Banteay Meanchey man was sentenced to three years in prison for comments he made on Facebook over the CPP’s inability to prevent illegal immigration from Vietnam and drug use.

Last year, the Supreme Court upheld a US$1 million defamation judgment against Son Chhay, the vice president of the opposition Candlelight Party.

A lower court in 2022 ordered Son Chhay to pay the amount to the CPP and the National Election Committee following comments he made about local commune elections, which he said was marred by irregularities.

According to the lawsuit, Senkaruna told The Cambodia Daily that the CPP should seek to compete with opposition politicians in the political realm, such as through free and fair elections, rather than through court complaints.

The Cambodia Daily newspaper closed in Phnom Penh in 2017. It has since been relaunched as a Khmer- and English-language online news outlet based in the United States.

The outlet cited Senkaruna's paraphrased comments in a Khmer-language article on Friday. He was not directly quoted.

Hun Sen’s online threat

The lawsuit claims that Senkaruna's remarks seriously damaged the CPP's reputation and deliberately harmed the upcoming Feb. 25 Senate election.

It was filed the day after Hun Sen made remarks on Facebook threatening to sue Senkaruna for commenting on the Son Chhay case. After stepping down as prime minister in August, Hun Sen was named president of the CPP.

Senkaruna declined to comment about the CPP’s lawsuit when contacted by Radio Free Asia.

However, on Facebook he said his comments in the article were aimed at promoting “respect for human rights, law, social justice and democracy” without serving any particular political party.

“Any paraphrasing of my words to add or leave out [the meaning] in order to attack directly on the name of a political party was not my intention and goal,” he wrote on Facebook.

Senkaruna has been actively involved in the promotion of human rights in Cambodia for more than 20 years, Am Sam Ath of human rights group Licadho told RFA.

“He is always active in helping people with land grabbing and other rights violations, and in asking the relevant authorities to intervene to find a solution for the people,” he said.

On Facebook, Senkaruna added a note of thanks to friends and supporters.

“Thank you very much for the kind words, greetings and concerns from my family, friends, media, civil society, international partners and foreign diplomatic friends for my safety,” he wrote. “I’m fine.”

The Cambodian authorities should drop all charges against Ny Nak, an outspoken critic of the government who was arrested on January 5, 2024, in response to comments he posted on Facebook, and immediately release him, Human Rights Watch said today. Nak is being held in pretrial detention on politically motivated charges of incitement to discriminate and criminal defamation concerning his criticism of Cambodian Minister of Labor Heng Sour.

“Cambodia’s new government has picked up where the previous government left off in its persecution of government critics,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should respect the right to free expression and immediately and unconditionally release Ny Nak.”

Nak said that his recent arrest is related to comments he made on December 17, 2023 on his Facebook page, in which he referenced the government’s decision to grant 91 hectares of land in Kampot province to the labor minister. He had written: “What achievements has Heng Sour done for the Khmer nation, that the government gave him forest land as his personal property? RIP Khmer forests.”

Nak is well-known for his criticism of the previous government of Prime Minister Hun Sen. He served 18 months in prison on charges of incitement to discrimination and public insult for a satirical post that the authorities alleged was an offense for mocking a speech by Hun Sen. He was released in June 2023 after he completed his sentence.

Human Rights Watch previously reported on an assault against Nak on September 12, 2023 when men with metal batons viciously attacked him and his wife in broad daylight in Phnom Penh. He was hospitalized with serious wounds to his head and extremities. Nak alleged that two days before the attack, on the evening of September 10, members of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party approached him to join their party and warned him to not be so publicly critical of the government. The authorities failed to seriously investigate the attack or to make progress in identifying those responsible.

Sok Synet, Nak’s wife, posted on Facebook on January 13 that her husband’s health is “now weak. He has headaches, dizziness, and itchy hands and feet.”

The attack shared similarities with assaults reported earlier in 2023 against members of the opposition Candlelight Party, which the authorities also never seriously investigated.

“Prime Minister Hun Manet is continuing down the same rights-abusing path as his father, and outspoken dissidents like Ny Nak will bear the brunt of that abuse,” Robertson said. “Cambodia’s aid and trade partners should ensure that their future engagement with the government is based on tangible and systematic improvements in human rights.”

The Preah Sihanouk Appeal Court this morning upheld the defamation convictions of two Koh Kong land activists, Phav Nheung and Seng Lin, under Article 305 of the Criminal Code. The court also dropped incitement charges under Articles 494 and 495 against them, partially upholding the decision of the Koh Kong Provincial Court from August.

Nheung and Lin were the target of a complaint launched by Chhay Vy, a former community representative whom the women had accused in 2019 of seizing land. The activists were each fined 4 million riel (approximately US$1,000) and ordered to pay 40 million riel (approximately $10,000) in compensation to Vy.

Both Nheung and Lin were jailed in pre-trial detention between 30 June and 6 October this year over the incitement charges, with Nheung detained alongside her infant son.

The prosecutor argued in favour of dropping the incitement charges during the appeal trial, making a further appeal to the Supreme Court from the prosecution unlikely.

Another two villagers were allowed to return after being questioned on Tuesday by the Siem Reap provincial court following a lawsuit by APSARA authority on villagers, accused of inciting others to commit felony and obstruct public work.

A total of nine villagers, including a commune police level officer, have been questioned so far in relation to APSARA’s legal case against the locals, which was reported by CamboJA.

Siem Reap Court spokesperson Yin Srang confirmed that siblings Kert Reachkol and Kert Yan have been allowed to return home.

According to Hang Touch TV online video which was live, some 100 villagers gathered in front of the provincial court to support their neighbors who showed up for questioning at the court on December 5.

In the footage, some villagers were seen lighting incense and praying to Buddha, a religious practice among Cambodians, hoping that the court would drop the charges against the villagers and not destroy their dwelling.

“I told the court that I didn’t incite [anyone],” Reachkol told CamboJA on Wednesday. “In my opinion, I shouldn’t be accused [of it] because I did not commit any act of incitement and obstruct public work,” he said.

He explained that in 2022, he fixed an additional iron front structure, and changed the roof from tarpaulin to zinc to protect the house when it rains but APSARA ordered him to remove it.

The authority came to remove it in June but was unsuccessful as the villagers gathered around and protested. “We begged them not to remove it as it would affect our livelihood,” Reachkol said.

APSARA National Authority spokesperson Long Koksal said the authority decided to file a lawsuit as the villagers refused to remove their construction, which was illegally built around Angkor heritage sites.

“When there was no cooperation [to demolish them] after we tried our best to resolve the issue [previously], we had no choice but to go with this method [lawsuit],” he said.

He said when APSARA Authority saw the illegal constructions, their officers informed house owners that they had illegally built them on the Angkor site.

“We gave them time to remove [the structures] depending on the timeframe they requested – one, two or three weeks – and reminded them when they didn’t follow the first notice,” Kosal said.

Prasat Bakong district administrative chief Din Dong said he was not aware that villagers were summoned for questioning but said that villagers had built additional front structures, and made a roof for parking which is prohibited by APSARA.

“Local authorities have compromised but importantly the area is under the control of APSARA authority,” Dong said, noting that there are six communes in Prasat Bakong where villagers live within the APSARA authority jurisdiction.

NGO rights group at Licadho Banteay Meanchey coordinator Phun Chhin urged APSARA to be more considerate of the villagers’ livelihood instead of taking legal action on them.

“He did not build a huge construction. He just fixed [a front structure] which is needed to support his daily livelihood but we are seeing a restriction by APSARA authority,” he said.

He felt that APSARA should not file a complaint against people who were fixing small things. “Accusing someone of incitement is a serious offense for villagers,” Phhin said. “We noticed that APSARA filed the complaint as a deterrent to other villagers who dare to come out and protest against their [APSARA] work.”

Previously, APSARA spokesperson told CamboJA that some 10,000 families, who volunteered to move to relocation sites of Run Ta Ek and Peak Sneng, remain under construction.

The Cambodian government is working to clear settlements around Angkor Archeological Park in an effort to retain the temple’s UNESCO World Heritage status. While thousands of people inside the Angkor Archaeological Park have been displaced on conservation grounds, communities have been allowed to stay but with restrictions. Apsara authority prohibits them from expanding their houses.

A Cambodian man who criticized the country’s longtime ruling party on Facebook over its inability to prevent illegal immigration from Vietnam and drug use was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in prison.

Kang Saran told Radio Free Asia that he was convicted by the Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court on charges of defamation, incitement and insulting the king.

“I ask the Royal Government or government leaders to fully respect the rights and freedoms of the people and the right to life and movement. Don’t just send [people] to go to Prey Sar prison like this,” he told RFA.

“Why can’t people express their opinions? Why do you always use arrests and charges like this, even though I have no political affiliation at all?” he said, addressing his comments toward court officials across Cambodia who have charged numerous government critics in recent years.

Kang Saran’s remarks about the Cambodian People’s Party came in a Facebook live video on July 2, just three weeks before the CPP won a sweeping victory in the general election.

In the video, he asked whether the CPP would do anything after the election to stop the flow of Vietnamese immigrants into the country – a sensitive political issue in Cambodia for many years.

He also noted that drug use, government corruption and economic insecurity remain society-wide problems in the country.

Banteay Meanchey authorities arrested Kang Saran within hours and held him for 10 days. He was released on bail on July 11.

Phon Chhin, the Banteay Meanchey coordinator for human rights group Licadho, said the court should carefully consider whether Kang Saran should be sent to prison to serve his sentence.

“Kang Saran tried to defend himself in court proceedings,” he said. “He asserted that he had no such intention as charged.”

Kang Saran said he was not immediately re-arrested following Wednesday’s verdict. He told RFA he has no plans to flee the country and insisted that he did nothing wrong in making the comments.

RFA wasn’t able to contact Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court spokesman Roeun Lina on Wednesday to ask about the case.

Siem Reap Provincial Court questioned four villagers, including a commune police officer for allegedly obstructing public work, and for intentionally causing damage and violence.

Provincial court spokesperson Yin Srang confirmed that the four people have been allowed to return home after questioning.

“They have just been questioned by the prosecutor, and we don’t know what the next procedure is yet,” he said, declining to comment further.

In August, APSARA National Authority filed two separate ​​​​​lawsuits against six villagers and a commune police chief. While one of the summonses was against the four villagers including the policeman, another was issued to the villagers for allegedly inciting other villagers.

The lawsuits were brought by APSARA after hundreds of villagers protested against its attempt to demolish illegal structures on August 8, following a notice that was issued in Prasat Bakong district’s Meanchey commune.

Villagers in the second summons for incitement had already been questioned on October 23, and now await the next procedure in court.

About 100 villagers gathered outside the court to support their neighbors on Friday.

Suong Seak, one of four villagers who was questioned, called on court officials to drop the charges against him because he did not obstruct public work or cause any violence against the authority.

“The court asked [me] about the use of violence against APSARA authority, but I did not use any violence,” he asserted.

“I don’t agree with what they have accused me of because I did nothing,” Seak said. He added that APSARA failed to demolish his tent and a front structure measuring four by six meters when he and other villagers protested against them in August.

“The additional front structure for my house was built to prevent leakage when it rains, otherwise what do I do [when it rains]?” Seak said.

Rolous commune police chief Rai Vanna declined to elaborate after being questioned by the court on Friday.

“It is just normal questioning but I can’t tell you because the leader is not allowed to provide information to you [the media],” he said. “I am not concerned because I didn’t commit what they have charged [me with].”

Two other villagers, Var Chamnab and Klork Kuyba, who were named in the lawsuit, could not be reached for comment.

APSARA National Authority spokesperson Long Kosa declined to comment on the court case as court officials are working the procedure.

“I don’t have any comment relating to the court procedure because the court is an independent institution and we have to respect its jurisdiction,” he said.

“[According to] our principle any construction or building which is illegal is a topic for demolition,” Kosal said, when asked how APSARA would resolve the issue involving the construction of the structures by the villagers.

NGO rights group Licadho coordinator for the northern province Ing Kongchet​ said the court should drop the charges because the villagers did not commit any violence against the authorities.

“According to my interview with them, they claimed to not have committed those offenses because they were just gathered there to voice their opinion and request the authority to help fix old roofs or tents.

“They didn’t use violence or damage the properties of the authorities. APSARA authority angered hundreds of villagers, who were gathered there to protest which stopped [the authority] from carrying out its work,” Kongchet said.

Over 10 employees had their contracts terminated for allegedly protesting against irregular wage payments by ML Intimate Apparel (Cambodia) Ltd in O’Neang Special Economic Zone in Banteay Meanchey province on November 08, 2023.

ML Intimate Apparel produces for global brands, such as RougeGorge (France), Hunkemöller (the Netherlands) and Damart (UK), according to NGO Central.

Chea Chanthy, a single mother of a two-year-old, who was among the full-time employees whose contract was terminated on November 13, told CamboJA that she found it difficult to believe the reason given by the company for her termination, which was that there were no orders from buyers.

She said many other full-time and short contract employees are still working there but she and her colleagues, who have worked for the company for about eight years, were terminated after they joined the protest and held placards.

“It is not possible for there to be a problem with no orders because people are still working there,” she said. “I think, because we were holding the [protest] placards,​ they terminated us. We have been working for eight years and even though the economy is declining, we can [still] do [manufacture] a little.”

Chanthy lamented that due to her lack of knowledge of the law, she did not know how to decline the “instruction to resign” from work.

“When we entered the [employer’s] room, they told us to put our thumbprint and we did what they asked. We could not say anything,” she said.

“They said they will allow us to sue them and that [they] are waiting to receive [our complaint]. But we don’t know the law, and we don’t have any money to sue them.” “ We [know] we will not win, so we took the little compensation they gave us. We are not happy to put our thumbprint. We feel like crying because we want to work so that we’d at least have a small salary for daily expenses.”

Chanthy said she is applying for a job at another place but has not received any answer. In the meantime, the $1,140 compensation she received from the company has almost been spent for her toddler’s milk, water and electricity, and a private loan.

Another worker, Lonh Sary, who also held banners with Chanthy, charged that her termination was a result of her participation in the protest, and not due to an alleged drop in her work performance for “several months in a row” as claimed by the company.

She said for about two months, every worker was doing the same work but there were times, when many of the workers had nothing to do for almost 20 minutes in an hour due to the lack of raw material.

“In fact, there has been a problem of no luggage for more than two months in the factory, so the workload was low for everyone,” Sary said, reiterating that the termination was due to the protest. “It’s because all those who protested were named.”

Although Sary does not want her job back with ML Intimate Apparel, she wants them to justify the $1,140 compensation paid to her.

“I don’t want to go back but I want to ask the company where I worked at for almost seven years why they only paid me $1,140, which includes my salary and annual salary. I want to know if it is in line with the law or not. I just want to know that.”

According to a worker, who declined to be named, irregular salary payments have occurred since the company was established and workers have carried out protests several times.

But each time protests are organized, there is always termination. “Around 400 workers protested this time, and more than 10 workers including full time and short contract employees were terminated after that,” the worker added.

When contacted, ML Intimate Apparel administration chief Ngoun Syvutha denied that the termination was due to the protest, rather it was a result of declining orders. He said the company needed to reduce the number of workers so that it can continue operating.

“As an administration, we see the reality … in November and December, the orders are really declining. For instance, this November, we only have 60,000 orders [..] on the factory side, we have a strategy to keep [operations] going, otherwise the factory won’t be able to sustain and this would affect workers. This is in accordance with the fixed duration contract [FDC] and undetermined duration contract [of the Labour Law].”

Regarding the consistent delay of wage payments, Syvutha said it was due to the global economy and late payments made by their customers to ML Intimate Apparel’s head office in Hong Kong.

He added that the compensation of $1,140 dollars was in accordance with the law, and that around 20 workers had been laid off as of November.

There are currently 551 employees, including administrative staff and garment workers in ML intimate Apparel, which produces women’s undergarments for export to the US and Europe.

Meanwhile, Khun Tharo, labor program manager for Central, told CamboJA that the factory had allegedly violated workers’ rights by forcing them to work overtime, delaying the payroll for a whole month without prior notice, requiring pregnant workers to work for eight hours like other employees, and restricting workers’ freedom of association.

“This factory has a history of persecuting and discriminating against unions. It has very bad working conditions in relation to the usage of FDC to dismiss workers,” Tharo said, adding that going by the labor law, the employer was wrong in delaying the payroll.

He shared that workers who joined protests to demand for regular salaries are “always targeted” for dismissal by employers, even though they possess undetermined duration contracts. Two of the workers who were dismissed had worked there since 2017.

According to Cambodia’s labor law, employment contracts should not extend beyond two years. If they do, they are automatically converted to UDCs.

Tharo pointed to Article 74, paragraph two of the law, which stated that “no dismissal can occur without a valid reason related to the worker’s aptitude or behavior, or the needs of the enterprise, establishment or group.”

After a complaint was filed with the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, a union was established in the company but the workers were still “persecuted” and dismissed without proper solutions, Tharo alleged.

“The company does not have a proper way to resolve the problem, and continues to violate the rights of workers,” he said. “The inspection by the labor department has not compelled the employer to abide by the law.”

Noun Sina, director of the Labor Department in Banteay Meanchey, told CamboJA on Monday that he only just received information regarding the termination of an employee by ML Intimate Apparel, and had instructed an inspector from his department to visit the company on Tuesday.

He explained that he was not able to provide any information as yet or determine which party had wronged, suggesting that the press wait while the unit conducts an investigation.

“The department has already assigned an inspector to investigate the case. In relation to this dismissal case, we don’t know yet whether the company or the workers are wrong. Thus, regarding his [the worker] dismissal, we have not determined whether the company fired him illegally.

“We also need to investigate whether the dismissal is related to the economy or not because we know that due to the economy, some enterprises are facing declining orders [which] caused them to reduce the number of workers,” Sina said.

Cabinet officials rejected a new petition brought by former NagaWorld employees Thursday, stating that the petition did not meet administrative requirements. Protesters were hopeful that Prime Minister Hun Manet and his new government might solve the dispute that has dragged on for nearly two years.

Kim Sokha, 35, worked at NagaWorld as a card dealer for over 10 years before being laid off by the company in 2021. As many previous petitions filed before the July elections were unsuccessful, he said this new petition was an attempt to see if Prime Minister Hun Manet would help them find a solution.

“I want him [Hun Manet] to know about the suffering of the workers. He is like a parent who knows the suffering of his children,” he said. “I want him to know that Nagaworld’s workers were unfairly dismissed which violates the law of Cambodia.”

Around 30 members of the Labour Rights Supported Union (LRSU) of Khmer Employees of NagaWorld gathered at Wat Botum Park Thursday morning, as district workers prepared decorations for the upcoming Water Festival. After entering the nearby Cabinet building, an official refused to accept the petition, claiming that it did not meet certain specifications, such as listing the names of the certain officials and the union members involved in the dispute.

“If what I said is not followed, I cannot do anything,” the Cabinet official told the group.

Around 1300 workers began their strike in December 2021 following mass layoffs without full severance pay at the Phnom Penh casino. The company claimed the Covid-19 economic downturn necessitated the layoffs. But rights groups like the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights (Central) and Human Rights Watch have said the layoffs were an attempt to quash NagaWorld’s independent union.

The strikers have faced detention, threats and violence. One striker said she had a miscarriage last year because of rough handling by authorities who rounded strikers onto a bus. A NagaCorp chief CEO’s son was accused of throwing a traffic cone at protestors and chucking a union member’s phone to the ground.

The president of NagaWorld’s union Chhim Sithar was found guilty in May and sentenced to two years in prison for inciting social unrest, while other convicted members have been handed suspended sentences. In October, the Court of Appeal upheld the trial court’s verdict for Sithor.

Strikers say that the Labor Ministry has unfairly sided with the company and supported its interests, while the government has suppressed union members’ right to strike.

LRSU Vice President Chhim Sokhorn said he was disappointed when the petition was rejected based on an administrative issue instead of getting a substantive response to their request.

“I request that he [Hun Manet] help us regarding our criminal lawsuit and our leader who is also now in prison,” he said. “Even though we follow all the procedures, we all suffer and the government has not taken action on this issue.”

Labor Ministry spokesperson Katta Orn said the company was forced to lay off the 1300 workers due to the Covid-19 pandemic, adding that a majority of the workers have already accepted compensation offered by the company.

“We observe that only 22 to 30 people are on strike. If the workers really want to end the dispute, they should contact the ministry to continue finding a solution,” he said.

Government spokesperson Pen Bona declined to comment.

The workers have suffered “all forms of intimidation, all forms of violence,” said Central’s program manager Khun Tharo. He added that the government has used Covid-19 restrictions to prevent protests and the judicial system to combat the workers’ cause.

If the new government creates judicial reform, this could help the workers seek justice, he said, but only if these reforms help ”real victims” and not “perpetrators of violence.”

“We see the new government has visited garment factories, while the NagaWorld workers continue their strike and are seeking the solution after being laid off,” he said.

Sokha, the union member at the protest, said the former NagaWorld employees’ strike is within their legal rights.

“We strike in accordance with the Constitution and follow all legal procedures. If what we have been doing is illegal, we would not be here now” said Sokha.

A 20-year-old Cambodian man who was thrown out of a state-run school because he was too short has again been assaulted by security forces as he staged another protest against his expulsion.

Keo Sovannrith told Radio Free Asia that he was demonstrating alone in front of the Ministry of Education on Monday when local authorities in civilian uniforms pulled him into a car and beat him, leaving him with a torn shirt.

“I am very upset for a society with such authority,” he told RFA. “I was slapped in the face. I was dizzy. I could not get up.”

Keo Sovannrith gained admission to the National Institute of Physical Education last November despite standing 162 centimeters (5 foot 4 inches) tall, under the 165 centimeter (5 foot 5 inch) minimum requirement for applicants.

But in December, shortly after participating in an entrance ceremony at a Phnom Penh stadium, he was removed from enrollment with no explanation, along with 11 other prospective students.

In July and August, Keo Sovannrith and several others protested each Monday in front of the ministry to demand readmission to the teacher training program. They said the institute’s enrollment requirements were too opaque and randomly applied.

Police surrounded and beat them on Aug. 21. Video of the incident was widely viewed on Facebook.

Plans to sue authorities

On Monday, Keo Sovannrith said he protested alone at the Ministry of Education because the other 11 former students are either too afraid to demonstrate or can’t afford to travel to Phnom Penh.

He added that the Ministry of Education recently offered him a government job so that he would stop protesting. He told RFA that he turned them down because he prefers to be a physical education trainer and wants justice for his expulsion.

“I understand that violence is against the law. I will sue them,” referring to the officials in the Phnom Penh district of Daun Penh who assaulted him.

RFA wasn’t able to reach Daun Penh district Inspector Teang Chansar and Ministry of Education spokesman Kan Puthy for comment on Monday. Daun Penh district Gov. Chea Khema told RFA he was too busy to answer questions.

Monday’s beating of Keo Sovannrith is just the latest example of Cambodian authorities using violence against non-violent protesters, said Am Sam Ath of human rights group Licadho.

“We as civil society organizations do not support any act of violence, no matter which side it is on,” he said. “Authorities should especially be tolerant in all these matters.”

A lawsuit has been filed by APSARA National Authority against seven villagers, including a commune police chief, who live around Angkor Wat, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for allegedly inciting and obstructing public work in August.

Two separate court summons issued against the villagers were obtained by CamboJA One summon was against four villagers, including the local police officer, who allegedly obstructed public work and intentionally caused damage and violence. Another summon was issued to the villagers for allegedly inciting other villagers.

On August 8, hundreds of villagers protested against an attempt by APSARA to demolish allegedly illegal structures after issuing a notice in Prasat Bakong district’s Meanchey commune.

Although the authority failed to demolish the structures, the villagers have been restricted by APSARA from constructing additional structures in front of their house or fixing their roofs.

“I don’t know why they have filed a suit [against me]. I only went to see [the protest],” said 38-year-old Var Chamnab, who is being sued along with three other villagers by APSARA.

“I wasn’t the only one [there] on that day … hundreds of people protested,” he said, adding that he was aware that villagers do not have permission to build, but that they had sought for permission several times but were denied.

Rolous commune police chief Rai Vanna said he cannot offer any details or comment as yet as he has not testified in court as to what he witnessed during the protest. He was supposed to give evidence on October 18 but it was postponed.

He said he had gone to the protest to monitor the situation and ensure public order.

“On behalf of the authorities, we have to give evidence on the case – villagers who were protesting – but the questioning has been deferred. So, I can’t say more as I am an official and I need to get approval from my boss before I can say anything,” Vanna said.

A villager, 36-year-old Sok Pov, was accused of incitement for allegedly posting APSARA’s notice on the removal of “illegal” structures in Bangkorng village on August 14 and 15. He is alleged to have asked villagers living inside and outside the village to “please join the protest”.

“I just posted [the notice] to inform people to come and appeal against the demolition,” he told the court when questioned on October 23, before being allowed to return home.

“I think it [the legal suit] was unreasonable. It is like restricting our freedom of expression when [all we did was] post the notice,” Pov said.

He said villagers living in Zone 2, which is a world heritage site, are not allowed to build new structures and extend the front portion of their house as it would impact the Angkor temples.

“There are a lot of difficulties [restrictions] … we can’t fix our house roof or build any extension in front. Within the authorities’ land, there are a lot of restrictions.

“They require us to seek permission [for construction] but when we request, they do not give us permission,” Pov said.

Earlier, a letter was sent by APSARA to village chiefs and representatives to inform them about the demolition of illegal structures, such as new shelters or cottages and new additions to front portions of old houses, from August 14 to 15, 2023.

APSARA spokesperson Long Kosal confirmed that his officials had “demolished” several illegal structures and houses but he could not specifically identify which ones needed to be removed.

“[New] constructions are not allowed within the world heritage site and they would need to get permission to build them. When it’s built without permission, it is [an] illegal [structure],” Kosal said.

“But, it doesn’t mean that when you apply for permission you will get an approval,” Kosal said, adding that there are legal requirements and conditions that should be satisfied when applications are reviewed.

Before the authority removed the structures, APSARA issued a notice in advance, he confirmed, but denied that there were restrictions on the rights of people who live within the world heritage sites.

“I think that some of our people have different levels of knowledge about the law. We can review how many people are living at the world heritage site, who are allowed to to fix houses or remove old houses and build new houses,” he said.

“We have to review the situation as a whole, not by looking on a case by case basis,” Kosal said.

NGO Licadho rights coordinator Ing Kongchet, who investigated the issue, called on the court officials to drop the charges against the villagers. He also urged UNESCO to intervene to protect the fundamental rights of the villagers and improve their living conditions.

“It is an issue that violates human rights. We appeal to APSARA and UNESCO to reconsider this case. APSARA has restricted people’s rights in requesting to fix or build houses.

“We support conservation but people’s livelihoods are important as well. People need security and safety. If their houses have no gates or toilets, and their roofs leak when it rains, they should give permission to fix it,” Kongchet said.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson with the UNESCO World Heritage Center asserted that UNESCO has “never requested, supported, or was a party to the relocation program” and that any questions relating to it should be conveyed to the national authority.

In response to CamboJA’s questions via email on Friday evening, the spokesperson said for all the sites in the world, UNESCO underscores that conservation measures decided by the authorities “must necessarily involve, take into account the opinion and respect the rights of local communities, and comply with human rights”.

The importance of the inclusion of local communities has been officially included in the World Heritage Convention’s Operational Guidelines since 2015.

According to the spokesperson, the center has already conveyed the concerns raised by international NGOs regarding the relocation program to the Cambodian state party and the World Heritage Committee, a 21-member intergovernmental body. (A state party is a country, in this case Cambodia, which has adhered to the World Heritage Convention).

At its last session in September 2023, the committee requested the state party to “take into consideration the living conditions and the rights of local communities and inhabitants affected by these relocations”, the spokesperson mentioned.

The state party was also requested to submit an updated report on the state of conservation of the property demonstrating the implementation of its suggestions to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, by December 1, 2024.

The spokesperson reminded that despite UNESCO’s resolute commitment to rights-based management of World Heritage Sites including the inclusion of rights holders and local communities in the conservation strategies of the properties, it does not have the mandate to impose measures on member states. “The conservation and management of World Heritage Properties are under the sole authority of the concerned state parties, which are sovereign over their territories.”

In the meantime, Siem Reap provincial court spokesperson Yin Srang confirmed that the court has postponed the questioning of the four villagers, including the policeman and that the next date has not been fixed yet.

Srang claimed that he does not know who the prosecutor of the case is, when asked to comment on those who have been questioned.

Last week, CamboJA reported that 700 villagers from seven villages in Pouk district and Siem Reap City protested against APSARA for attempting to demolish the illegal structures.

Kosal said there are about 10,000 families who voluntarily moved to relocation sites, while the Peak Sneng site remains under construction.

Update: This story was updated on November 4 at 10:40 a.m. ICT to include comments received from UNESCO World Heritage Center after publication.

The activists, dressed in clothes made of plastic bags and carrying signs emblazoned with environmentalist slogans, marched to the rallying point where they would submit their petition to Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment.

It was supposed to be a peaceful march to urge the government to raise taxes on plastic bags and charge customers more for using them, in a bid to protect Cambodia’s environment.

But plainclothes officers blocked the way of the 20 marchers, pushed them, snatched their phones, and attempted to confiscate their banners.

“They didn’t listen to us. We are holding banners to request the government to listen to our two requests,” Ream SreyMech Rathana, one of the marchers, told Radio Free Asia.

“Where is democracy? [We are] people [just] walking on the streets who speak their mind but they outlaw us and the authorities are resorting to violence and unethical behavior,” said Ream SreyMech Rathana.

The authorities choose violence as their response, regardless of what the activists are asking for, said Hum Sok Keang, another activist.

“We have observed that authorities don’t allow us to work freely even though our work is beneficial to the country but they think we are polluting the society,” Hum Sok Keang said.

After the encounter, a representative from the Ministry of Environment accepted their petition.

To combat plastic pollution, the Ministry of Environment in 2016 issued a sub decree ordering provincial, city and district authorities to properly handle trash. But critics say authorities have failed to resolve the trash issues, forcing the people to pick up plastic litter from public places.

RFA attempted to reach the ministry’s spokesperson Phai Bun Chhoeun and the Phnom Penh police spokesperson Sam Vicheaca, but neither could be reached for comment.

Plastic pollution pollutes the environment and will discourage tourists from visiting Cambodia, said Chhin Chorvin, another activist.

“Plastic affects humans and animals and pollutes water,” he said. “When we use too much plastic, we burn it and it pollutes the atmosphere.”

The Phnom Penh Court has blocked three environmental activists, currently on probation for convictions related to their advocacy, from leaving the country to receive a prestigious international award.

In a letter published on Monday, the court’s prosecutor Chroeng Khmao stated that the trip was “not necessary” and that the activists were “not allowed to go abroad.”

Last week, Thon Ratha, Long Kunthea and Phoun Keoreaksmey with the Cambodian environmental activist group Mother Nature received an invitation to a November ceremony in Sweden to accept the Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative Nobel. The group has worked to expose environmental destruction in the country over the last ten years, including logging and sand mining.

“Undeterred by threats, harassment and arrests, Mother Nature Cambodia has emerged as a powerful voice for environmental preservation and democracy in Cambodia,” a press release from Right Livelihood states.

The three activists were arrested in 2020 and convicted with incitement for their involvement in planning a one-woman march to raise awareness of the impact of filling in lakes for development. They were released in 2021 after serving 14 months in prison, but are still under court supervision until 2025.

They were also handed a new charge of ‘plotting’ in 2021 in connection with an ongoing case concerning the documentation of sewage being released into the Tonle Sap River.

“This is a cruel thing for the judiciary in Cambodia to deny us as young people working on the protection of natural resources and the environment,” said Ratha, one of the award winners. “The reason that the prosecutor gave, ‘not necessary,’ that’s a ridiculous reason because we were going to go abroad to get a global award that is not easy for any group or individual or country to get.”

He believes the decision will give the international community the impression that Prime Minister Hun Manet is following in the footsteps of his father, and will negatively impact Cambodia. While “liberal countries” are getting along with the new government now, he said this could change when restrictions on freedoms continue.

“The case against us as Mother Nature is clearly a political issue,” he said “It is a restriction on the rights and freedoms of young people who dare to tell the truth, dare to be angry with their own national wealth, dare to expose corruption and the inactivity of officials on the extraction of natural resources.”

Appearing on stage to receive the award could have been a source of inspiration for young Cambodians, he said, showing that people from a small country can do great things. The activists plan to have representatives accept the award in person on their behalf.

“Right Livelihood awards, supports and honours Laureates regardless of whether they can attend the Award Presentation,” said Sydney Nelson, a communications officer for the organization.

Soeng Senkaruna, the human rights group Adhoc’s senior investigator, said Adhoc was very sorry to see the court’s rejection of the request and still insists that the court should be more open-minded.

“This decision is one that discourages young people who love natural resources and actively participate in their defense,” he said. “We are all Cambodians, but we do not value the Cambodian youth who protect all natural resources.” Y Rin and Plang Sophal, spokespeople for Phnom Penh Municipal Court, both declined to comment.

The Phnom Penh Appeal Court today upheld the convictions of eight current and former unionists from the Labor Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees of NagaWorld (LRSU).

Nine activists, including union President Chhim Sithar, were convicted of incitement under Articles 494 and 495 of the Criminal Code by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in May 2023. Eight of the activists appealed the verdict. They included Sithar, who received the maximum sentence of two years in prison; Chhim Sokhorn, Hay Sopheap, Kleang Soben, Sun Srey Pich and Touch Sereymeas, who were sentenced to 18 months in prison; and Sok Narith and Ry Sovandy, who received one-year suspended sentences.

The Appeal Court trial started this morning. The court announced its verdict upholding the lower court’s judgment in full this afternoon after deliberating for 30 minutes. Sok Kongkea, who was also convicted by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court and received a suspended sentence, did not appeal the lower court’s verdict.

LRSU members have been on strike since December 2021, after the NagaWorld casino laid off the entire LRSU leadership and many of its members. The unionists were arrested in December 2021 and January 2022, and held in pre-trial detention until March 2022. Sithar was arrested again in November 2022 for allegedly violating judicial supervision conditions. She has since been detained in Prey Sar’s Correctional Centre 2. The other activists will remain under judicial supervision until all appeal avenues are exhausted.

The Phnom Penh Appeal Court today announced its verdict upholding criminal charges against four out of 10 people who were arrested in front of Phnom Penh's Yak Jin garment factory on 2 January 2014, one day before the violence that took place along Veng Sreng Boulevard in January 2014. The strike was notoriously shut down on 3 January 2014 when mixed government forces opened fire on the striking workers.

The 10 workers were convicted by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in 2014 of instigating intentional acts of violence with aggravating circumstances, contrary to Articles 28 and 218 of the Criminal Code. Out of the 10 defendants, only four (Chan Puthisak, a Boeung Kak Lake land activist; Theng Savoeun, President of the Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community (CCFC); Sokun Sambath Piseth, a former staff member at Center for Labor Rights of Cambodia; and Vorn Pao, President of the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association (IDEA)) appealed their sentences.

The Appeal Court upheld the Municipal Court’s decision to sentence Theng Savoeun to four years’ imprisonment, as well as its sentences of four years and six months for Chan Puthisak, Sokun Sambath Piseth, and Vorn Pao, all of which were suspended by the lower court. All four had already spent between 3 January and 30 May 2014 in prison. The Appeal Court also dropped the 8 million riel fine (around US $2,000) imposed by the lower court on all four defendants.

In the violence on Veng Sreng Boulevard in 2014, mixed government forces shot dead at least four civilians, wounded at least 38 others, and arrested 23 workers and human rights defenders. Khem Sophath, a 15-year-old garment worker, was tragically wounded and then disappeared from Veng Sreng Boulevard. Sophath remains missing to this day, and civil society continues to call for accountability for the violence and his disappearance. To date, the government has failed to provide any kind of thorough, independent and impartial investigation. Arrests of other workers have also been met with farcical appeals in recent years.

Independent online news outlet CamboJA removed the name of a government minister from an article about a public beating of a government critic after the Ministry of Agriculture threatened it with legal action, the outlet’s executive director told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.

CamboJA – short for Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association – reported on Thursday that agricultural expert Ny Nak criticized Minister of Agriculture Dith Tina on Facebook over the minister’s handling of a report on rice prices.

The Facebook post doesn’t mention the minister’s name. It went live the day before the Sept. 12 assault, which left Ny Nak initially unconscious and bleeding from the head after several unidentified men beat him with metal batons.

The ministry responded to the article in a letter to CamboJA on Friday that said their reporting “speculates that the attack on Ny Nak was politically motivated based on his recent baseless posts criticizing government officials and institutions.”

The article also includes the minister’s name “even though the minister has never been mentioned by name in any of Ny Nak’s recent Facebook posts,” the letter said.

The ministry urged CamboJA “to rectify these serious breaches of journalistic ethics by removing unsubstantiated claims and speculations” that hurt the reputations of ministry officials.

It also demanded that the publication remove the minister’s name from the article and that it “ensure that such malicious intentions and defamatory speculations do not recur in the future which would result in legal actions that could lead to the same outcome” of Voice of Democracy, an independent media outlet that was closed by the government in February.

Posting under a pseudonym

CamboJA, a network formed by former reporters of The Cambodia Daily and Phnom Penh Post, deleted the minister’s name from the article and added an editor’s note on Monday.

It also added the name of Associate Editor Jack Brook as a contributor to the article and corrected the spelling of the name of an investigator for human rights group Adhoc who was quoted in the article.

“We think the Ministry of Agriculture’s request is acceptable and we’ve removed [ the minister’s] name because Ny Nak's Facebook posting didn’t mention the minister by name, only his picture,” CamboJA Executive Director Nop Vy told RFA.

Ny Nak was recently released from an 18-month jail term for criticizing Cambodia’s COVID-19 restrictions. Since his release, he has posted comments critical of the government on Facebook under the pseudonym IMAN-KH.

His post last week about the minister came a day after he said he was approached by two members of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party asking him to join the party. He said he had refused the invitation, saying he is “neither a member of the ruling party or the opposition.”

He was traveling with his wife Sok Sinet in Phnom Penh on Sept. 12 when a motorbike crashed into them and unidentified men began beating them.

Ny Nak was taken to a local hospital and pledged on Friday to join the CPP – but only if Prime Minister Hun Manet can arrest his attackers.

On Monday, Minister of Interior Touch Sokhak told Voice of America that the suspects were probably using the accident as a pretext to rob Ny Nak and his wife.

“Until we arrest them we will see what they will answer about their intentions. We will know what this case is all about,” he told VOA. “But for the preliminary [assessment] this is a violent action and intended to rob the victim’s motorbike.

‘Ny Nak won’t run away’

Sok Sinet denied that her husband’s attack was a robbery.

“To me, I observed their actions. They intended to kill my husband,” she said. “It was an assassination attempt. I didn’t lose any handbag, money, phones or a motorbike.”

RFA was unable to reach Touch Sokhak for comment on Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Tuesday that the attack “shares similarities with assaults reported earlier in 2023 against members of the opposition Candlelight Party, which were never seriously investigated.”

Ny Nak said on Facebook on Monday that he will be released from the hospital soon, and he promised not to run away from Cambodia.

“This is my part as a Cambodian. I will continue to help the country until I die,” he wrote. “Ny Nak won’t run away, doesn’t hide, sell out or seek asylum in a third country but will continue to stay with Cambodian farmers forever.”

Phnom Penh police say they are investigating a brutal assault against a vocal critic of government policies, as civil society groups say the incident is the latest in an ongoing crackdown on critical voices.

Baton-wielding assailants attacked Ny Nak on Tuesday afternoon as he and his wife Sok Sreynet were driving their motorbike along street 369 from their organic fertilizer warehouse in Chbar Ampov district’s Prek Pra commune on Tuesday, Sreynet said.

Around 1:10 p.m., a group of three or four men in black uniforms and helmets rode their motorbike into Nak’s motorbike and began beating him with a baton until he was “bleeding from his head,” his wife says.

“It was a case of attempted murder, it is not a coincidence,” she said. “My husband and I have never had any argument with anyone.”

The style of assault echoed a series of attacks against opposition Candlelight Party activists documented by Human Rights Watch in the months leading up to July elections earlier this year.

Nak was released from prison in June last year after being incarcerated for 18 months on charges of incitement after making a satirical post criticizing then-Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Covid-19 restrictions.

Nak remains bruised and bed-ridden in a private hospital and his wife said she filed a complaint to authorities on Thursday.

“Commune police told me that they have seen camera security, there are eight people [suspects] with four motorbikes, and they will follow the procedure of the investigation,” Sreynet said. “I hope they can arrest suspects and provide justice to my husband.”

Chbar Ampov District Police Chief Mao Soeut and Phnom Penh Municipal Police Chief Chuon Narin both said police are working on the case.

“We are not leaving the case, we are continuing to arrest perpetrators. Please take a look at the situation, currently there are a lot of gangsters taking their motorbikes to beat [others]. Let the police investigate,” said Narin, before hanging up the phone.

Nak, a fertilizer producer and fruit tree seller, has frequently criticized the Agriculture Ministry on his Facebook page IMan-KH, which has 413,000 followers. His wife denied he had any political ties.

On Monday, Nak wrote on his Facebook: “Agriculture is my breath…I am not silent about agriculture officials who have just work to get a salary. Ny Nak will always be in competition with agriculture officials.”

In the hours before he was assaulted on Tuesday, Nak made a Facebook post directly criticizing the current Agriculture Minister.

“As the minister has more than 60 secretaries of state and uses drones for surveillance, but can not find a secretary to make official documents and notes are handwritten like this, who knows who wrote it? Which factory miller? Which company? They do not have, so they only write on Facebook,” Nak posted.

“We were saddened by the news, to be honest, when we heard it we were shocked by the attack,” Agriculture Ministry spokesperson Im Rachna told CamboJA. “As you may know, the Cambodian government highly respects the freedom of expression and we believe it is the core value of democracy. We wish him well.”

“I do not comment on speculation,” Rachna said, when asked if there was any connection between Nak’s critical comments on the minister and the assault. The current Agriculture Minister could not be reached for comment.

Government spokesperson Pen Bona also denied that the assault was a signal of broader repression against free speech.

But Soeng Senkaruna, a senior investigator at rights group Adhoc, said that the assault appeared to be tied to Nak’s critical public statements.

“We can say it came from expression of opinion,” Senkaruna said. “The beating is a crack down on spirits who dare to exercise their opinion to criticize the government’s institutions.”

After an indigenous Bunong community publicly voiced concerns about a World Bank-funded project repurposing their customary forest and burial grounds, authorities convened a meeting last Thursday between communal and provincial authorities — but the community members were excluded.

The meeting was held in Mondulkiri province’s capital, Senmonorom, to discuss Social Land Concessions under the World Bank’s $93 million LASED III Project across three districts — Koh Nheak, Pech Chreada and O’Reang — according to an invitation letter obtained by CamboJA.

In July, the Roya Leu Bunong community in Koh Nheak previously showed a LASED III consultant that the project’s plans to allocate land to poor families overlapped with more than half of their 6,000 hectare community forest and multiple ancestral burial grounds, CamboJA reported earlier this month.

Lin Lan, a Roya Leu resident, and other community members say they have repeatedly expressed concerns ever since LASED III signs were posted near the community in March last year with no further explanation. But the project had already been greenlit in 2021, despite the World Bank’s stringent policies to prevent negative impacts on indigenous communities.

Lan, who has been active in defending the community forest, said she and other community members heard about the meeting and tried to attend, but authorities prevented them from entering when they arrived at Senmonorom. The community is seeking a communal land title to gain legal recognition of their customary use of the forest and culturally significant sites.

“We went to the provincial capital in order to attend the meeting because we wanted to know what it was about, yet we were not allowed to get in,” Lan said. “We want the authorities to hold a meeting with us, so that we can meet face to face for solutions.”

Phleouk Phearum, another Bunong activist who attempted to attend the meeting, which also planned to discuss a land conflict in her community, said she was barred from attending.

“If they discuss with their own officials, and do not allow people to attend like this, how can people know what they do or what solutions should be sought between us, how can conflicts be solved?” Phearum said. “Before they discuss with their officials, they had better discuss with us.”

The LASED III project is funded by the World Bank but implemented by the Ministry of Land Management. Ministry official Thol Dina was made the new project director for LASED III last week. He told CamboJA he had not heard about the meeting nor had he met with the community or any authority on the ground over this issue.

Former LASED III project director Roth Hok, Under Secretary of State for the Land Management Ministry was no longer in the position as of last week.

Lan said she submitted her latest letter seeking a resolution to the land conflict with the provincial department for the Ministry of Rural Development​​ on International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on August 9. In response, the ministry promised to send an official to better understand the situation on August 25, Lan says.

“We are not sure whether the ministry will grant us the legal collective title, nonetheless, they have promised to appraise our land on site,” Lan said. “We put our faith in them after their promise. Our community has strived so hard.”

Ministry of Rural Development spokesperson Chan Darong did not respond to requests for comment. The Ministry was not listed on the invitation letter.

Nuon Monichenda, the head of the ethnic minority development department within the Rural Development Ministry, said via Telegram on Monday that the provincial ministry “might work on it.”

“The authorities talked about the case and now they are working on it to study it in depth for more information,” said Roya commune chief Pil Deth.

He did not specify a timeframe for the investigation, and confirmed no Roya Leu community members were invited. He declined to provide further information but said the best way forward was to find a resolution with the Land Management Ministry.

The meeting also addressed a completed survey of social land concessions in relation to Bunong communities’ land claims and several ongoing land conflicts.

Memom village chief Chan Moeun, who is Bunong and has jurisdiction over Roya Leu attended the meeting. But Roya Leu community members have pointed out that he does not live in the Roya Leu community and four residents told CamboJA they believe Moeun is selling the community’s land for personal profit, though he has vehemently denied these accusations.

World Bank spokesperson Saroeun Bou referred CamboJA to the Ministry of Land Management but did issue a brief statement over email reiterating the goals of the LASED III project.

“The project’s goal is to support land titling support to 15 Indigenous Communities (ICs). The project implementation team has posted signs in Mondulkiri province to communicate dates associated with project implementation,” stated Saroun, indicating implementation was ongoing. It remains unclear how the concessions will affect the Roya Leu communities’ ongoing attempt to obtain a communal land title.

“I hope the​​ government helps our community and we get the solution soon after the officials study the effect [of LASED III],” Lan said.

After the bus company Giant Ibis Transport delayed concluding negotiations with 30 laid off union employees, the workers continued protests at the company’s Sen Sok district station in Phnom Penh on Monday.

Giant Ibis has repeatedly delayed the deadlines to complete negotiations, which were initially set to conclude in late May.

The union members estimate they are collectively owed more than $100,000 by the company, according to the labor law, or around $7,000 to $8,000 per person, union leader Siem Morady says.

However, the company delayed negotiations three times since the originally agreed-upon date in late May, provoking the union to resume its protests to demand long-standing benefits after being suspended from work in April 2020, Morady says.

“We came here to maintain our stance requesting the company take us back to work, settle full payment of our long-standing severance and seniority benefits and we also urge the company to stop intimidating our union,” Morady told CamboJA.

Morady also appealed to tycoon Kith Meng, whose conglomerate Royal Group launched Giant Ibis Transport without indicating any sale or change in ownership status, according to Royal Group’s website.

Kith Meng and the Royal Group did not respond to requests for comment.

During the protest, Giant Ibis Transport representative Ou Phanny — who signed agreements on behalf of the company at the negotiation at the Labour Ministry, allegedly shouted and behaved aggressively towards the union members, Morady says.

“He ranted with offensive remarks to our union members,” Morady claims. “He completely crossed the line.”

Giant Ibis Transport and Ou Phanny, the company’s representative in the negotiations, did not respond to requests for comment.

The Labor Ministry, which had been mediating the negotiations, asked the union in June to wait until after the July 23 national elections to resolve the negotiations, but no solution has been reached since, Morady says.

“A person who acts on the company’s behalf did not have the competence to make a definitive resolution for use,” said Morady, who said he has grown wary of what he considers the company’s ploy to indefinitely delay negotiations.

“We do not have any other ability to confront the company since we already have done so based on the law,” he said. “We can merely keep protesting in vain.”

The union has been protesting on and off since April, but has struggled to fund their gatherings as many workers are unable to stay inside the city and are surviving on temporary construction jobs and other day labor in their home provinces. A few share food or stay at Morady’s small home in Phnom Penh

“Everyone has taken other side jobs to survive, so the protest can only take place only on the weekends,” Morady said.

Ath Thorn, president of the Cambodian Labor Confederation, which helped the Giant Ibis employees unionize in 2020, said that the company’s claims of repeatedly miscalculating the severance and seniority payments for laid-off employees was becoming a tired excuse. The problem, he said, was “not hard to solve.”

“The Labour ministry must work to reinforce the law and if a company makes an excuse to avoid settlement, the ministry has the capacity to hold them accountable,” he said. “Otherwise it indicates that the labor law has been diminished.”

Labor Ministry spokesperson Heng Sour did not respond to requests for comment.

The Koh Kong Provincial Court this afternoon convicted 10 Koh Kong land activists of malicious denunciation and incitement to disturb social security, including three activists who have been detained in prison since June on separate cases. Around 60 community members from 197 Land Community and 955 Land Community gathered outside the court in support of the activists as the verdict was read.

The 10 convicted activists are Chhan Chheurn, Det Huor, Erb Vy, Erp Teung, Heng Chey, Inn Thou, Kert Nov, Kong Men, Puo Houn, and Sok Chey. All 10 were sentenced to one year’s imprisonment and ordered to collectively pay 40 million riel (approximately US$9,600) in compensation to tycoon Heng Huy. Erb Vy’s sentence was fully suspended, while the remaining nine intend to appeal the verdict.

Det Huor, Heng Chey and Sok Chey were already detained in Koh Kong Provincial Prison as a result of separate cases, and were transported to the court in a blacked out police van. They will remain in prison on those separate charges, while no arrest warrants were issued for the six other activists whose sentences were not suspended, indicating they will remain out of prison pending appeal.

These convictions follow other convictions of Koh Kong land activists in recent weeks. On 4 August, the Supreme Court upheld additional convictions of malicious denunciation and defamation against Det Huor. On 2 August, the provincial court found two women activists, Phav Nheung and Seng Lin, guilty of defamation and incitement to disturb social security. Both were sentenced to one year’s imprisonment and ordered to pay 40 million riel (approximately US$9,600) in compensation. In addition to this arrest warrant from 2 August, another warrant was issued on 29 June sentencing Nheung and Lin to pre-trial detention.

Three Koh Kong land activists were this week found guilty of criminal charges including defamation, incitement, and malicious denunciation for their peaceful activism in defence of their communities’ land rights.

On 2 August 2023, the Koh Kong Provincial Court found two women activists guilty of defamation and incitement to disturb social security. Phav Nheung and Seng Lin were sentenced to one year’s imprisonment each and ordered to pay 40 million riel (approximately US $9,600) in compensation to the plaintiff. Both were the target of a complaint launched by former community representative Chhay Vy, whom the women had accused in 2019 of having seized land. The charges were dropped against a third woman, Khorn Phun.

In a separate case this morning, the Supreme Court upheld the verdict of the Sihanoukville Appeal Court against a third land activist from Koh Kong, Det Huor. Huor was convicted of malicious denunciation and defamation following a complaint made by tycoon Heng Huy about Huor’s Facebook post dated September 2021. Huor was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment and a 2 million riel fine (approximately US $500), which was reduced to 6 months’ imprisonment and a 1 million riel fine both suspended by the Sihanoukville Appeal Court in October 2022. The Supreme Court’s judgment upholds this decision.

Huor and Nheung have been in pre-trial detention since 29 June 2023 – Nheung alongside her 18-month-old son – after being charged with incitement in a separate case alongside nine other land community members. The charges followed their attempt to peacefully travel to Phnom Penh to submit a petition to the Ministry of Justice.

The government ordered internet service providers to block the websites and social media pages of several independent media outlets and a public database in a July 12 document obtained by CamboJA on Monday.

The Telecommunications Regulator of Cambodia-issued document sought to cut off access inside the country to the Cambodia Daily, Radio Free Asia and the newly launched public database Kamnotra, run by the Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM).

The media and database had “broadcast information to make confusion, affect the government’s honor and prestige, and failed to fulfill the operating conditions of the Information Ministry,” an unofficial translation of the document stated.

Service providers were told to block access to the Instagram and Twitter accounts of the Cambodia Daily, the Twitter account of Kamnotra, and the Youtube channel of the Cambodia Daily.

The document also referenced a July 11 letter from the Information Ministry, whose spokesperson Meas Sophorn confirmed to CamboJA over Telegram that the ministry had initiated the order.

Regarding Kamnotra, Sophorn stated that “[We] found that this website operated as a newspaper but did not fulfill its obligations in accordance with legal procedures and legal documents as a news agency.”

He did not elaborate further or respond to additional requests for comment or phone calls.

Following Kamnotra’s launch, the Information Ministry claimed that Kamnotra did not have an authorized media license.

CCIM media director Ith Sotheouth denied the database was a news outlet, explaining it was intended to compile existing public information, such as documents released in the Royal Gazette such as land grants, honorific titles and analysis of election data.

“Through our observation, some news websites which are critical of the government are blocked for the election, but unfortunately, even though Kamnotra’s sole purpose is to compile all the public records for everyone to access, it was still blocked,” Sotheouth said. “It is a loss to the benefit of the public.”

“Our goal at CCIM is to provide the Cambodian people with the information they need to make informed decisions,” Kamnotra stated on its website.

On Monday, Kamnotra released a statement on Twitter stating that the platform could not be accessed by some users, noting that the organization is “looking into the issue and working on ways for you to get data and insights from Kamnotra soon.”

CCIM launched Kamnotra at the end of June, after CCIM’s Khmer and English language news outlet Voice of Democracy (VOD) had its license revoked in February.

After VOD’s shutdown in February, the Telecommunications Regulator of Cambodia swiftly ordered all internet service providers to block access to the English and Khmer language sites. But internet service providers lagged to comply with the order, leading to sporadic access depending on the service provider. This appears to be the case with accessing Kamnotra and other sites as of Monday afternoon.

In March, three Khmer language news websites also had their license revoked for alleging land fraud connected to government officials.

In June, a former government official turned social media commentator issued death threats via his Facebook page against a Cambodia Daily reporter.

Major internet service providers such as Metfone, Sinet, Cellcard, WiCam, and Smart did not respond to requests for comment.

Post and Telecommunications Minister Chea Vandeth told CamboJA he was busy and could not answer questions.

The Secretary of State for the Ministry of Post and Communication received questions sent by CamboJA via Telegram but did not respond.

Telecommunications Regulator of Cambodia spokesperson Sithy Sieng did not respond to requests for comment.

RFA and 17 other media had their websites temporarily blocked before the 2018 elections. The Cambodia Daily was forced to close due to a large tax bill in 2017.

“RFA condemns the order from the government of Cambodia for internet service providers to block RFA content on online platforms – which is in clear violation of Cambodian law and an attempt to censor the free flow of information ahead of the July 23 election,” said Radio Free Asia Chief Communication Officer Rohit Mahajan.

Governments across Southeast Asia have sought to block websites, posts and individuals to stifle “critical dissent,” notes Dhevy Sivaprakasam, Senior Policy Counsel at digital rights NGO Access Now.

“In these cases, blocking these sources of independent information not only denies members of the public their rights to access such information, associate and participate in political discussion — it creates an air of trepidation, where people start to self-censor to protect themselves from any negative repercussions,” she said. “Even if groups jump to other platforms to continue their work, they lose time and followers — all while having to look over their back in their operations.”

Thirteen employees at a Puma-supplying factory have lost their jobs after participating in a union election earlier this year.

The Kandal province-based supplier, Eastcrown Footwear Industries, has repeatedly engaged in union-busting practices and harassment of workers, say labor rights activists and union members.

“I think this is union discrimination, not a layoff following labor law,” said the union’s president, Soeng Votum.

Elected to be the union’s president in February, Votum was not rehired by the factory when her short-term, three-month contract expired on May 15. Since April, 13 of the factory’s 16 union members have not had their short-term contracts renewed.

Nine of the union members, including Votum, had previously lost their jobs at the factory last year when they tried to form a union in August.

“The first time and the second time, they dismissed us. They are still persecuting us,” Votum said. “I think if [Puma’s] customers pressure the company, they will bring us back.”

Last year, the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights (Central) appealed to German footwear brand Puma, which led to Votum and her colleagues regaining their jobs in early January.

Cambodia’s Trade Union Law expressly prohibits “discrimination on ground of union activities” including as “an employment renewal condition.”

The use of short-term contracts has been identified by Human Rights Watch and labor rights groups as a key way for garment factories to exercise control over workers, including as a threat against union organizing and advocacy.

Ann YouSa, a vice union leader, first lost her job in October last year and then failed to have her contract renewed on April 11. She and her husband, the factory’s elected union treasurer Em Sambath, came back to their hometown in Prey Veng province. YouSa has returned to farming and Sambath has taken jobs as a truck driver, but their combined pay is still not enough to support them.

“I did not earn any money because I was at home,” she said. “And my husband has been transporting dirt for a week, but he did not get any tasks to do because it was raining.”

On May 5, Votum said the union members met with the company and the Labor Ministry but no solution was reached. Votum said she has little faith that the Labor Ministry’s efforts to facilitate negotiations will lead her to get rehired by the company. She remains in Phnom Penh and said without work she has difficulty paying rent.

Union members also say they have faced harassment in the months after they formed the union. According to worker reports compiled by Central, union members have been closely monitored by other staff members at the factory, including being filmed, photographed and followed to their homes. Other union workers report they were restricted from working overtime.

One staff member has reportedly shouted at union members, yelling insults such as “cheap woman” and “useless woman.” Votum and another union member allege that staff members have pushed and physically assaulted Votum and snatched union documents from her hands.

Central’s program manager Khun Tharo said that the elected union leaders and founders are entitled to special protection from being dismissed before, during and after the union election. He added that the conduct of the staff who have harassed the union members is considered serious misconduct and that those employees should be terminated according to Cambodia labor law.

“Central demands that those persons who were involved in threats, intimidation and harassment against the elected union leaders/founders shall be held accountable with concrete actions to be taken immediately,” Tharo said.

Eastcrown’s management attended a 2021 workshop facilitated by Puma and the U.N.’s Better Factories Cambodia, which covered “the rights and obligations of employers, unions and worker representatives and workplace relations,” a Puma representative told CamboJA in an email.

Van E Hong, an Eastcrown Footwear Industries administrator, denied allegations that the factory was discriminating against union members. He said the dismissals were due to downturns in the global economy leading to mass layoffs across the garment industry.

“This is the accusation of the plaintiff, but in fact, the company has announced that the company is facing a global economic crisis,” Hong said. “So, based on the contract, the person who reaches the end of their contract, we do not continue to give him [employment].”

He added that if the factory receives good orders then the company will rehire the workers.

“If there are goods to make, we will call experienced workers. The company will still need [them],” he said.

As for the report of physical assault from Votum, Hong said the company handed the matter over to the police.

Neng Sotheany, a commune police officer, said that he did not follow up on the report of the alleged assault because union workers did not file any complaint to him.

Votom said she chose not to file a complaint with the police because she believes the alleged assault fell within the purview of the Ministry of Labor and should be dealt with by the ministry, not the police.

Labor Ministry spokesperson Heng Sour did not respond to requests for comment.

Kerstin Neuber, Puma’s senior head of communications, told CamboJA via email that since April the brand has received the factory’s retrenchment plan indicating anticipated job losses, interviewed three trade union leaders and conducted an on-site visit.

“The selection of workers for retrenchment [lay-offs] was based on employment contract expiry date, however Better Factory [sic] Cambodia conducted an assessment early May and the results are still being discussed with factory management,” Neuber wrote.

Neuber said the Labor Ministry is aware of the union members’ request for reinstatement and that the ministry’s report on the dispute was expected to be finished by late June.

The factory’s owner, Chinese conglomerate Xinlong Group, “remains a key partner” for Puma and “Cambodia remains a key production country,” Neuber said.

Votum, the union leader, said the union members would continue to fight for reinstatement even if the Labor Ministry and Puma did not help them get their jobs back.

“We will continue to file a complaint without giving up,” she said.

A Boeng Tamok resident received a summons to appear in a Phnom Penh court on Monday following a clash with district authorities over a community bridge.

The Phnom Penh deputy prosecutor summoned Am Phoeun in response to a criminal complaint that she had illegally appropriated private property and used violence against rightful real estate owners. The court names the plaintiffs as Thai Ouy, Tang Kim and Ngoun Mong — whom Phoeun said she did not know.

Phoeun said she believed the summons was a response to a May altercation with authorities. Phoeun said she and her neighbors blocked dozens of Prek Pnov district government-employed security guards when they came to dismantle a small bridge Boeng Tamok residents had built to improve their access to fishing locations.

The residents successfully prevented the security guards from destroying the bridge by gathering around 100 people to block them, Phoeun said, claiming no violence had been used by protestors.

“I am not guilty of anything, but they came to sue me for using violence on their property, even though I was the owner of the land,” she said.

She said after the incident she did not file any complaint to the police or higher authorities as she thought there was no one who wanted to help her community.

The summons was delivered to Phoeun on Sunday afternoon by a district police officer, Phoeun said. She requested a delay because did not yet have a lawyer to represent her.

Phoeun, a 54-year-old mother of four, said this was the third court summons she had received.

In February, nine other Boeng Tamok residents faced charges for protesting when authorities allegedly prevented them from repairing their homes.

The areas’ current residents like Phoeun lack nationally-recognized land titles and are slated for eviction as the development projects spread out around the Boeng Tamok lake.

Residents of Phoeun’s village of Samrong Tbong in Prek Pnov district support themselves by fishing, even as the lake around them is being filled in as numerous plots of land given to well-connected individuals.

There are around 200 families and 77 houses at Boeng Tamok lake, Phoeun said. They have been seeking land titles or alternative places to live and 31 families have been resettled by the government.

“As a victim, I propose [to the court] to drop all charges [against me] and I ask [the government] for living and development on the spot,” Phoeun said.

Court spokespersons Plang Sophal could not be reached and Y Rin declined to comment. Deputy prosecutor Sorn Mony could not be reached.

Licadho operations director Am Sam Ath urged for authorities to handle the matter peacefully and with empathy towards the residents at Boeng Tamok.

“I feel that there is still no solution for the people living in Boeng Tamok,” he said. “Therefore, as a civil society organization, we want to insist and ask for a peaceful and sustainable settlement.”

At least nine land activists from four communities in Koh Kong province were arrested on 29 June 2023 and charged with incitement under Articles 494 to 495 of the Criminal Code for attempting to submit a petition to the Ministry of Justice.

On 29 June 2023, authorities blocked land community members in Sre Ambel district from travelling to Phnom Penh to deliver their petition. Community representatives from four land communities were questioned, after which 11 of the activists remained in custody and were transferred to Koh Kong provincial police station in Khemarak Phoumin town. The land activists were held overnight, in addition to the six-year-old child and 18-month-old baby of two of the activists, both of whom slept at the police station alongside their mothers. The six-year-old child’s father was called to collect the child this morning, when the 11 activists were transferred to the Koh Kong provincial court. Ten were ordered to be held in pre-trial detention in Koh Kong prison. Other community members were prevented from gathering outside the court in support of their representatives.

Around 100 community members had planned to travel to the capital yesterday to submit a petition asking Minister of Justice Koeut Rith to intervene for charges to be dropped against 30 land activists from five communities. Four vans were initially prevented by police from travelling that morning, with only one van able to continue to Phnom Penh.

Police threatened to arrest around 20 community members who gathered in front of the provincial police station to support their representatives this morning. Police were also deployed between Tani village to Praek Chik village, where the community members live. Other community members reported difficulties travelling to Koh Kong province. The reasons for questioning the land activists are currently unclear.

Three Bunong indigenous family members were arrested by Mondulkiri provincial police on Sunday over a land dispute in Chamkar Te Village, Spean Thmor Commune. They were sent to Mondulkiri provincial court for questioning on Tuesday afternoon, according to the human rights organization ADHOC.

Police first contacted the Bunong relatives on Wednesday, when the Mondulkiri provincial police commissioner issued a summons to Nhev Mloeung, and his family members Meung Sotek and Kreuk Try. The police asked them to come to the Office of Minor Criminal Police in Mondulkiri to discuss a complaint filed by Non Phally. Phally alleged that the Bunong relatives had destroyed and stolen fence posts on his land.

Mloeung said the 12-hectare piece of land has belonged to his family since 1979, but until now it has not been registered with the government. In order to prevent cattle from entering the farmland, Mloeung said he built a fence around the land in early April.

“I received a summons [on Wednesday] and I agreed to go to the police and make a record of the land. I described the story of my ancestral land that was left to the next generation to take care of,” he said. “The police said both sides have no right to do anything on the disputed land, wait for a solution.”

But, according to Mloeung, people who claimed the land was theirs did not listen to the police and instead continued to destroy the fence and clear the land on Sunday.

“I came in and forbade them to continue, but they filed a complaint,” he said. “The police came to arrest my grandfather, brother and sister and sent them to the Mondulkiri provincial police commissioner immediately. ”

Even though he himself was not arrested, Mloeung said police officials forced him to be fingerprinted and sign an agreement to end the conflict; they told him if he did not agree he would have to go to court.

The forcible and warrantless arrests were unjust, Mloeung said.

“I am a victim, it is not fair for us, I did nothing wrong, just go and see peacefully. Why did the owner of the land get arrested and put in a car to the provincial commissioner?” he said. “And why is the person who came to encroach on our land not wrong?”

CamboJA did not reach Non Phally for comment in time for publication of this story.

So Sovann, Mondulkiri provincial police deputy, told CamboJA that the three relatives were sent to the police because they were the ones who destroyed and stole the fence posts. He said the land title belonged to someone else, not the arrested family members.

The police will release the three indigenous people after they accept the truth that the land does not belong to them, Sovann said.

“After they [the Bunong family members] agree to give the land to the owner’s who have the [land title] documents, and after we finish the negotiation, they can go back home,” he said.

Kroeung Tola, ADHOC monitoring officer in Mondulkiri Province, said the three indigenous people had tried to stop others from clearing their land on Sunday. They wanted to settle the disagreement peacefully, and did not do anything violent or illegal, he said.

“They just wanted to negotiate a proper solution and ask them to stop clearing their burial land, but another group said they had the land title and all the documents. But the indigenous people did not agree to give up their land or have it cleared by others,” he said. “Then the person who claimed he was the landowner called the police to catch [the Bunong family members].”

The 12-hectare piece of land includes a plantation and burial grounds of the Bunong ethnic group, according to Tola.

“[Bunong people] protected this land since 1979, but during Pol Pot’s regime they were taken to another place,” he said. “After the war ended, they came back in 1983 and continued to protect the land until today, but the land title is with other people.”

Arresting people without a warrant is wrong and this case is not a criminal offense, he said. He added that the authorities should deal with this situation in accordance with Cambodian law, whether these three individuals are right or wrong about the land belonging to them.

Am Sam Ath, operations manager with the NGO LICADHO, said that the authorities should have properly investigated this case before making the arrests.

“If there is a directive from the authorities, both sides should wait for a peaceful settlement and should not touch the disputed land,” Samath said. “But if only one party goes to record the actions of the other party peacefully, and then there are arrests, it is a violation of their rights and unreasonable.”

Mloeung hopes that Mondulkiri authorities help to intervene in this land dispute and that his relatives will be let go immediately.

“I urge the authorities, relevant officials at all levels and the Ministry of Justice to help resolve the land issue and release my three relatives,” he said. “We, the indigenous people, are very alarmed when family members are arrested.”

The Interior Ministry issued a statement warning that it would take action against the Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies (CPSC) ​right before the organization was going to hold a conference in Siem Reap on May 30 and 31.

The title of the event was “Review of Current Humanitarian efforts, and seeking effective ways forward.”

The Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies (CPSC) is an NGO based in Siem Reap that focuses on peacebuilding and conflict resolution in Asia.

The ministry’s statement said the CPSC’s conference would be “an unjustifiable intervention” in ASEAN member states and would go against the ASEAN Charter. The charter was adopted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2007 and outlines the purpose and principles of the intergovernmental organization.

The ministry’s statement said the meeting would also violate “the rules of associations and non-government organization” in Cambodia according to requirements of the Interior Ministry.

CPSC issued a statement on May 30 confirming that the meeting “would be called off to comply with the ministry’s letter.”

When CamboJA called CPSC, the person who answered declined to comment on the issue before hanging up. The NGO did not respond to further requests for comment.

Am Sam Arth, operations director for Cambodian human rights NGO Licadho, said it is not illegal for these organizations to hold meetings as part of their work.

“For me, I think the Interior Ministry made such a fast decision to stop their meeting,” he said. “They should have considered the main purpose [of NGOs].”

He added that Cambodian NGOs already have to register with the Interior Ministry, and international NGOs must sign the memorandum of understanding with the Foreign Affairs Ministry. CPSC did not do anything wrong, he said.

“The government must provide protection, respect and appreciation for the work NGOs are doing in developing our nation,” he said. “They are good partners with the government that help fulfill certain criteria and address shortcomings.”

Interior Ministry spokesperson Khieu Sopheak claimed in an interview with CamboJA that CPSC admitted that it was wrong to hold the meeting and that what they did was against the ASEAN regulations.

“[CPSC] did activities that are against the ASEAN charter,” he said. “This is the work of ASEAN, they [NGOs] cannot intervene in the internal affairs.”

The Supreme Court this morning rejected the appeals of nine current and former political, social, and youth activists. The court upheld the incitement convictions against current and former Khmer Thavrak activists Chhoeun Daravy, Hun Vannak, Tha Lavy and Eng Malai; Khmer Student Intelligent League Association (KSILA) activists Koet Saray, Moung Sopheak and Mean Prummony; and former Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) members Chhour Pheng (also known as Chhou Pheng) and Chum Puthy (also known as Tum Vuthy, or Chhum Vuthy).

The Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s sentencing of the activists to 20 months in prison with between five to six months of their sentences suspended. Daravy, Vannak, Pheng and Puthy were sentenced to serve 15 months in prison, while Saray, Sopheak, Prummony, Lavy and Malai were sentenced to serve 14 months. All nine defendants were also each fined 2 million riel (US$500).

The activists were arrested in August and September 2020 and held in pre-trial detention, which was credited to their sentences. All nine activists were released from prison in early November 2021, but remain under a two-year probation period with restrictive conditions until November 2023.

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court convicted the nine activists, along with five other co-defendants, of incitement under Articles 494 and 495 of the Criminal Code on 26 October 2021. Ten of the defendants appealed their convictions, which were upheld by the Phnom Penh Appeal Court on 22 August 2022. Nine defendants subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court, as reflected in today’s verdict. The criminal charges were brought against all the activists in relation to peaceful demonstrations following the July 2020 arrest of former union leader and labour rights activist Rong Chhun.

The Ministry of Environment condemned the environmental group Mother Nature Cambodia after its youth activists delivered a petition Monday to halt state land grants to private companies in Kirirom national park, according to a statement.

Mother Nature activist Thoun Sreypov, 21, said the petition had urged the government to stop granting land to private companies in Kirirom National Park, a popular tourist destination in Kampong Speu province.

On June 27 last year, a state sub-decree granted a private company, One More Ltd, 221.94 hectares of forest land within Kirirom. One of the company’s directors is Choeung Sokuntheavy, daughter of tycoon Choeung Sopheap, whose husband is senator Lao Meng Khin.

The activists’ petition requested the government “withdraw the licenses from private companies” in the national park and return the land to the state.

The Ministry of Environment said that the group had been committing “illegal acts” and was not an officially recognized NGO. The Ministry’s statement added that anyone who participated in the movement would be held “accountable” and that the group’s activities were “against the interests of Cambodian society.”

“There is nothing illegal whatsoever about young Cambodian citizens exercising their rights and participating in peaceful public events,” said Mother Nature’s co-founder, Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, who was deported in 2015.

Ministry of Environment spokesperson Neth Pheaktra declined to comment further.

When asked whether the group’s petitioners would face legal consequences, National police spokesperson Chhay Kim Khoeun said “Why did you ask me this question?”

“Any organization or anyone doing illegal activities will face arrests,” he said. “Do not ask me like this, now I am busy.” He hung up the phone.

The Ministry of Environment established a new government-supported NGO, also called Mother Nature, in February. A range of prominent environmental activists have publicly aligned themselves with the ruling CPP in the past months, as July elections approach.

Sreypov, the activist, said she thought the Ministry of Environment should focus on responding to the social and environmental issues raised by her group rather than attempting to discredit the activists.

“This is real intimidation and the threats thwart youth involvement with us,” she said. “They are violating our freedom of speech to raise concerns in society, while using the law to attack us.”

“We voice what we see that is wrong,” she added. “They must not stop our activities.”

After withholding years-worth of owed wages from employees, the bus company Giant Ibis Transport reached an agreement earlier this month to comply with the labor law and pay compensation to 30 laid off union workers who have been protesting for months.

But the company has since failed to deliver the compensation by the agreed upon May 22 deadline following an agreement signed by the company on May 13, according to union leader Siem Morady and documents seen by CamboJA.

“The company was due to pay us laid off workers by May 22,” Morady says. “However, the company now seems in total silence.”

The 30 Giant Ibis Transport union members say they are legally owed severance and seniority payments — allegedly amounting to well over $100,000 — which have not been provided since 80 employees were laid off in April 2020.

In negotiations, Giant Ibis Transport representative Ou Phanny — who signed the agreement on behalf of the company — told the laid off union members they would receive their withheld wages but would not be reinstated, Morady said.

Phanny allegedly shouted and behaved aggressively towards the union representatives during the negotiation process at the Labor Ministry, Morady said.

“He ranted and threatened to provoke violence against employees,” Morady said. “This image looks brutal in Cambodia. He did not care, while he leaned on power from the powerful person.”

Morady referred to tycoon Kith Meng, whose conglomerate Royal Group launched Giant Ibis Transport. Morady and others say Meng is the company’s real owner, even though the connection between Royal Group and the bus company is not identified in public records.

Royal Group did not respond to requests for comment. Kith Meng could not be reached.

Morady and other union members accuse Giant Ibis Transport of effectively engaging in union-busting behavior. The company has also been actively recruiting new workers instead of rehiring the laid off union drivers, Morady added.

“We have urged the company to take us back to work, but the company’s representatives failed to do so,” he said. “This is real discrimination against union members”.

Ou Phanny, who identified himself as a Giant Ibis Bus manager, denied the company was discriminating against union members and said he had not acted aggressively.

“Who said I used violence?” Phanny said, laughing. “It is not like that.”

The company claimed this week that it had miscalculated the payments owed to workers and needed more time, pushing back the deadline until June 7 which the union reluctantly agreed to, Morady said.

Ath Thorn, president of the Cambodian Labor Confederation, which helped the Giant Ibis employees unionize in 2020, said that miscalculating the severance and seniority payment to laid-off employees was an excuse.

“This is real intimidation,” Thorn said. “The workers have agreed to take the money, although they are not taken back to normal work.”

“If the company claims that they need to calculate again, why do they take so long to just recalculate?” he added.

While non-union members have already been accepted back into the workforce, the union members have been required to renounce their legally owed benefits to resume working at the company, Morady said.

The exact payment for workers was not specified in the agreements, but Morady, a bus driver with the company, said the 30 workers are each owed around $7,000 to $8,000 including back pay since their suspension.

Cambodian labor law states that suspensions more than two months require permission from the Labor Ministry. The Labor Ministry did not respond to requests for comment as to whether this permission had been granted.

“The Labor Ministry works as a specialist to solve problems related to labor disputes, so if the company said they are unable to calculate, what about the ministry?” Ath Thorn said. “Unless they are biased towards the employer”.

Morady said he and representatives met with the Labor Ministry and the company on Thursday to discuss the payments workers were owed.

“The company is transparently seen to be holding out on this negotiation for their own benefit,” Morady said. “They said they need to project the total payback for the settlement with us. It’s just a company ploy.”

A letter shared with CamboJA shows that, as part of the negotiations, workers are prevented from protesting until the settlement was concluded.

More than a dozen other workers were unable to sign their names because they remained at their homes in the provinces and could not afford to travel to the city, Morady said.

“Now the negotiation is pushed back to June 7 and we do not know what will happen,” Morady added. “It has not come to an end yet. If they still do not comply, we will continue to protest.”

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court this morning issued incitement convictions for nine current and former union activists from the Labor Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees of NagaWorld (LRSU), including imprisoned union President Chhim Sithar. The convictions under Articles 494 and 495 of the Criminal Code are related to the union’s ongoing peaceful strike.

The court sentenced Sithar to the maximum prison sentence of two years and she was immediately detained following the verdict. Sithar and the other unionists were previously arrested and imprisoned in December and January 2022, before being bailed in March 2022. Sithar was re-arrested and imprisoned on 26 November 2022 for allegedly violating judicial supervision conditions, despite the fact that neither she nor her lawyers were ever informed of any conditions.

Five other LRSU unionists – Chhim Sokhorn, Hay Sopheap, Kleang Soben, Sun Srey Pich, and Touch Sereymeas – were each sentenced to one year and six months in prison, but the five women will remain out of prison and under judicial supervision until all appeal routes are exhausted.

The remaining three defendants – Sok Narith, Sok Kongkea, and Ry Sovandy – received one-year sentences that were suspended. The court provided no reasoning in its judgment.

LRSU members have been on strike since December 2021 following mass layoffs at the NagaWorld casino, which included LRSU’s entire leadership and a significant number of its members. Members have faced judicial harassment, physical attacks, and sexual assaults by authorities during the course of their peaceful strike.

Independent researcher Chan Vibol has been charged with plotting and incitement after participating in a May workshop run by the land rights group Coalition of Cambodian Farmers Community (CCFC), according to a Tuesday evening statement from the Ratanakiri provincial court.

Vibol, who is not a CCFC employee, is the fourth person to face charges for attending the multi-day workshop in Ratanakiri. The court has issued a warrant for Vibol’s arrest, according to court spokesperson Keo Pisoth, Ratanakiri court spokesperson.

After reviewing the evidence, the prosecutor described the workshop as a “secret gathering which discussed political issues to cause incitement in farmers to rise up and cause turmoil in society, leading to the overthrow of the government,” according to an unofficial translation of the court’s Tuesday statement.

“The investigating judge is further investigating their computers and some documents,” Pisoth said. But he declined to share further information about the specific evidence underpinning the court’s allegations.

The several dozen CCFC workshop attendees had their phones collected and put in a box of drinking water bottles, while a security camera was turned away to avoid recording the workshop’s activities, according to the court’s statement.

On Monday, the court brought the same charges of plotting and incitement against CCFC president Theng Savoeun and two colleagues, who have been in custody since May 17 and were placed in pretrial detention earlier this week.

Last week, Interior Ministry spokesperson Khieu Sopheak accused workshop participants of plotting a “peasant revolution” which CCFC representatives and supporters have repeatedly denied.

The charges for the four detained workshop participants are under articles 453, 494 and 495 of Cambodia’s criminal code. Plotting carries a five to 10 year prison sentence and a 4 million riel fine — approximately $972.

Senior investigator for human rights group Adhoc, Soeng Sankaruna, said he was disturbed by the court’s characterization of CCFC’s workshop as a “secret” gathering as opposed to a routine internal discussion.

“It is very concerning because usually civil society groups have cooperated together in monitoring and training citizens on their rights,” he said. “In general meetings, they don’t want to reveal what they are discussing to the public and I believe other institutions who have a meeting also don’t want everybody to know about their meetings too.”

“It will make other civil society groups concerned about organizing assemblies as any accusation might happen,” he added.

Vibol earned a PhD in political science from the Royal Academy of Cambodia in 2013.

As a freelance researcher, Vibol has produced reports that include surveying the Kingdom’s NGO operations and providing recommendations for improving civil society work in the Kingdom.

Vibol could not be reached for comment.

Vibol wrote on his Linkedin that he is “envisioning to see all live in peace and dignity.”

Members of land communities from Koh Kong, Preah Sihanouk, Svay Rieng, Kampong Speu, and Kandal provinces gathered to demand the release of three Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community (CCFC) staffers who were arrested on 18 May.

Theng Savoeun, the association’s president; Nhel Pheap, senior organizing officer; and Thann Hach, community facilitator officer, were charged by the Ratanakiri Provincial Court with plotting against the nation and incitement under Articles 453 and 494-495 of the Criminal Code, respectively. Say Kouhav, the investigating judge, sent all three CCFC staff members to pre-trial detention in Ratanakiri prison at approximately 6:30 pm today. If convicted, they face between 5 and 10 years in prison.

While hundreds of community members gathered outside the Ministry of Interior to demand the three men’s release, many others were blocked by authorities from travelling to the capital. On 19 May 2023, community members from Koh Kong province were blocked by local authorities at 2 am as they attempted to drive to Phnom Penh. They were stopped for around two hours and threatened with arrest if they continued their journey. After they returned home, authorities warned community representatives that any further efforts by community members to gather in Phnom Penh would be met with arrests.

Three staffers at the Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community (CCFC) have been arrested and are expected to be sent to court, a day after police in Kratie province stopped a bus carrying 37 people and detained several people for questioning overnight.

This morning, police formally arrested Theng Savoeun, CCFC president; Nhil Pheap, a senior officer at the NGO; and Thann Hach, a project officer. Reasons for stopping the bus and the arrests are not clear. The three were among those detained overnight, while the remaining 34 people left the police station in their own bus this morning.

Authorities confiscated computers, mobile phones, and written documents from the group, and the Ministry of Interior’s Anti Cyber Crime Department were seen entering the police station following the staffers’ detention.

CCFC is a membership-based organisation established in 2011 to address land rights and issues affecting Cambodia’s farmers. Savoeun was previously arrested alongside other NGO staffers and community members in January 2014 following a violent crackdown on demonstrators in Phnom Penh, and spent five months in prison prior to receiving a largely suspended sentence of four years.

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday threatened to fire the relatives of a popular Cambodian online activist based in France who has been highly critical of the longtime leader and the government.

Thousands of viewers watch Sorn Dara’s talk shows on Facebook during which he routinely attacks Hun Sen and calls for his removal from office. His father is a military officer and a longtime supporter of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and and his sister-in-law works at the Ministry of Interior.

“You want to try me if your parents don’t teach you lessons. I will fire your parents – including your relatives – from their jobs,” Hun Sen said at a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh. “You are so rude. I will invite your father and your sister-in-law to learn some lessons and don’t complain that I am taking your relatives as hostages,” an apparent reference to firing them.

Sorn Dara lives in exile in France and is seeking asylum there. He most recently criticized Hun Sen for promising free admission to people and participants during the upcoming Southeast Asia Games, which are being held in Cambodia next month.

The move has been criticized as a way to curry favor with voters ahead of July’s parliamentary election.

Following his threats on Tuesday, Hun Sen posted videos of Sorn Dara’s mother and brother on Telegram saying they were disappointed that Sorn Dara hasn’t joined the CPP.

‘You insult your parents’

Hun Sen also spoke publicly about Sorn Dara in February, saying that he wasn’t a good son because he didn’t listen to his parents.

“You insult your parents to whom you owe gratitude saying they have less education than you,” he said. “Your parents gave birth to you. You still look down on them. How about the regular people? If you don’t recognize your parents, then you are not human.”

Sorn Dara is a former official of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, which was dissolved by the Supreme Court in November 2017. He said his father disowned him that same year because he had refused to join the CPP.

Sorn Dara’s father, Col. Sok Sunnareth, deputy chief of staff of the Kampong Speu Provincial Operations Area and a ruling party working group official, publicly implored his son on Feb. 22 to stop criticizing Hun Sen and his government, according to a Khmer Times report.

On Tuesday, Sorn Dara responded to Hun Sen’s latest angry threat with a Facebook post that said the prime minister should act in a more mature manner and lead the country with dignity.

Speaking to Radio Free Asia, Sorn Dara noted that Hun Sen has recently been using threats and tricks against political opponents as the election looms.

“I don’t want to be associated with my family. They are different from me,” he said. “No one can stop me from doing something.”

‘I will try to advise my brother’

Sorn Dara’s parents appeared in a short video in February posted by the pro-government Fresh News, saying they had severed ties with their son.

His brother, Sorn Saratt, told RFA on Tuesday that he has also cut ties with him. But he said he will try to convince his brother to defect from the opposition party and join the CPP.

“I will try to advise my brother to stop attacking the King, the government and Samdech [Hun Sen], to stay away from traitors and return to the family and the country,” he said.

Ros Sotha, executive director of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, told RFA that Hun Sen’s threat isn’t legitimate. He urged the prime minister to be patient and to avoid violating human rights and the law.

“As a leader, he shouldn’t be afraid of being criticized,” he said. “There is no law that [Sorn Dara’s relatives] will be fired because they are related to members of the opposition party.”

The Information Ministry revoked the licenses of three media outlets on Thursday after they published reports exposing a senior government official’s role in land fraud.

The Ministry stated that online Khmer language media outlets Federation of Cambodia-ASEAN Journalists, Raksmey Kampong Cham and Dumnong Knong Srok had “committed serious violations of journalistic ethics” and “not followed the instruction of the ministry.”

Chea Lyheang, president and publisher of the Federation of Cambodia-ASEAN Journalists, expressed disappointment that the Ministry revoked his outlet’s license without clear explanation.

“We regret this, please show the exact issue and what mistake we have made,” Lyheang told CamboJA.

Lyheang said the Information Ministry had called him for a meeting in February and requested that he remove articles alleging that government officials had forged documents in a land dispute and, in another case, involved in the extortion of poor families.

One report, published in all three outlets, revealed that senior ruling CPP National Assembly member Sar Chamrong, former deputy governor of Banteay Meanchey, allegedly forged documents to gain more than 60 hectares of land in Banteay Meanchey.

“After seeing forged documents and thumb prints, I have published this information and Sar Chamrong has complained to the Information Ministry,” Lyheang said.

Chamrong heads the National Assembly’s Commission on Human Rights, Complaints and Investigations. In February 2020, Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith led a delegation to pay respects at the funeral of Chamrong’s mother.

Chamrong could not be reached for comment by CamboJA.

The Information Ministry claimed the articles damaged the honor of the officials named in the report, according to Lyheang.

“I replied that I cannot remove the information because it is real information, especially a lie to Prime Minister Hun Sen,” Lyheang said.

Another article published in the three outlets revealed that a Takeo provincial deputy prosecutor had seized property from three families who bought it from Ratanakiri province and demanded they pay him money to get it back.

Chea Saren, publisher of Dumnong Knong Srok, published the same reports into land disputes and land fraud this year, including in a video segment receiving more than 169,000 views on Facebook. He said the Information Ministry requested he remove the articles, which he refused to do.

“They [Information Ministry] had requested to remove those two articles but I didn’t follow [their request] because we have enough documents and are interviewing villagers,” he said. “We have published the real information of villagers, which might have impacted other people’s interests.”

Information Ministry spokesperson Meas Sophorn denied the Ministry had asked the media outlets to remove articles.

“It isn’t true,” Sophorn said. “The decision to revoke licenses came because those media outlets have broadcasted disinformation with no verification of sources from relevant parties related to information they have published, and they didn’t make a correction to disinformation they had published.”

The spokesperson claimed that the land dispute in Banteay Meanchey province was already resolved and so there was no need to report further on it. He added the outlets had “violated journalistic professional ethics…stated in the Press Law.”

The Press Law states that anybody who believes they have been subject to a false report damaging them may file a civil suit to resolve the matter in court.

“For me, I want to see a thorough investigation of the cases before closing [the publications],” said Nop Vy, executive director of Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association (CamboJA).

Press freedom in Cambodia has worsened as a result of the closure of these outlets, he said.

“From my perspective, if [the closure of media outlets] continues, it will not be a good image for our society, it could have a lot of impacts, especially impacting the push for transparency and [ability] to root out corruption in our society,” Vy said.

The government has previously censored the media for reporting information that it deems to damage the reputation of officials.

In February, the government shut down independent media VOD and blocked access to its website for a report alleging the Prime Minister’s son Hun Manet had signed a document in place of his father to provide aid to Turkey.

“It is a lesson learned for other media institutions,” Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith said on his Facebook page after the announcement of VOD’s closure. “The media institutions that do not agree to publish clarifications, [they] will face the revocation of their licenses.”

The revocation of VOD’s license was condemned by a range of foreign embassies, the United Nations and human rights groups. But Prime Minister Hun Sen brushed off those concerns and said VOD’s shut down strengthened the Kingdom’s journalism by punishing what he claimed to be unprofessional reporting.

Following the loss of its license, outlet Dumnong Knong Srok posted a goodbye to followers on its Facebook page.

“Farewell to the professional journalists all over the Kingdom of Cambodia who are in love with the field of journalism,” Dumnong Knong Srok said in a Friday post. “Wish them good health and continue to spread true information to the society for the motherland.”

Venerable Soy Sat was arrested on 9 March 2023 in Battambang province and detained overnight at the provincial police station. The monk was defrocked and released on the evening of 10 March, and consequently forced back into civilian life.

The arrest occurred during Venerable Soy Sat’s ongoing religious march, which started on 1 March 2023 in the capital and was set to end roughly 350 kilometres away in the border city of Poipet.

Venerable Soy Sat marched to highlight seven demands, including calling for monks who join social actions to not be expelled from pagodas; for courts to not be improperly used against activists; for respect for all citizens’ freedom of expression; for the fair resolution of land conflicts; and for the release of politicians, civil society members, and youths currently detained in prison.

The arrest in Battambang followed an earlier disruption on 7 March 2023, when authorities from neighbouring Pursat province briefly stopped the activist monk and questioned him.

This is the second time this year that Venerable Soy Sat took part in a national march across multiple provinces. In late January, the monk joined a march headed by then-union leader Rong Chhun, who is now a Vice President of the Candlelight Party. Upon returning to his home in Plaoch pagoda in Kampong Speu, Venerable Soy Sat was told he could no longer reside there. He has been living in a nearby forested area since.

Nine Boeng Tamok lake residents face charges of “intentional acts of violence and obstruction of public officials” and were placed under court supervision following a February 21 warrant issued by the Phnom Penh Municipal court.

The residents received the warrant in the morning and were ordered to appear in court by the afternoon. They did not attend because their lawyer from human rights NGO Licadho was unavailable, they said.

Court spokesperson Y Rin said there was no further information to share and Lim Sokuntheara, the judge who issued the warrant, could not be reached for comment.

For years, the outspoken residents of Samraong Tboung village on the outskirts of Phnom Penh have protested the filling-in of Boeng Tamok, one of the capital’s last remaining natural lakes. They are also on the verge of being evicted from their homes and losing their livelihoods fishing and harvesting vegetation from the lake as a series of land giveaways to well-connected elites and developers transform the landscape.

Prak Sophea, a prominent activist and resident of Samraong Tboung village along the lake, denied the allegations. She said the charges likely arose after an altercation between authorities and residents in October last year.

Local authorities had barred residents from making home repairs on the grounds they were illegal squatters and gave them packs of noodles as compensation. A group of frustrated villagers later burned the donated gifts in front of village security officers, who kicked the embers at them. In response, the villagers threw rice. The embers burned Sophea and forced her to visit the hospital for treatment, she said.

“Should we stand for the authorities to beat us, can we not defend ourselves?” said Sophea, a 43-year-old mother of three. “Does the law allow us to protect ourselves or let the authorities beat people?”

Committing an “intentional act of violence” carries a maximum of three years imprisonment and a six million riel fine, while “obstruction of public officials” could lead to a one year prison sentence and two million riel fine, according to the Cambodian criminal code.

Sophea and at least 10 villagers have already been ordered to appear in court a combined three times since 2022.

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court previously issued a court summons in August 2022 for seven representatives of Samraong Tboung village, including Sophea. The Prek Pnov district head of security claimed the residents had committed obstruction of public officials, incitement and public disorder.

Soeun Sreysoth, 32, said herself, her husband and her brother were named in the most recent court summons. She added that she is disappointed as they had merely sought to raise their voices to secure legal land ownership of property they have occupied for years.

“It is injustice for citizens because we are just advocating, fighting for our housing rights, but the authorities issued a warrant to threaten us,” she said.

According to urban poor NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT), at least 2,244.45 hectares of the lake’s 3,239.69 hectares have been filled in with sand, following a 2016 sub-decree allowing the government to rent or sell land in and around the lake.

In recent years, filled-in areas around Boeng Tamok lake have been distributed to wealthy and powerful individuals and companies. Recipients include ruling party CPP senator Kok An, Chea Sophalen, the daughter of Land Minister Chea Sophara, military commanders Vong Pisen and Sao Sokha and the famous singer Preap Sovath.

Out of many companies, the director of Orkide Villa, Nuth Ton also received 67 hectares of Boeng Tamok lake in September last year. Orkide is chaired by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s daughter Hun Mana, while his other daughter Hun Maly and daughter-in-law Pich Chanmony are also directors in Orkide-brand firms.

Samraong Tboung villagers have not received any land titles or been classified as legal residents but they have always been able to vote for elections, they say.

Soeung Saran, STT’s executive director, said he appreciated development around Phnom Penh but not without consideration of its impact.

“Before developing, we should think about the long-term impact on society and the environment,” he said. “I would like to see more assessments of the social, economic, and environmental impacts before making a decision to modify the land.”

Am Phoeun, a mother of four named in the August 2022 court summons, said that while she has making a living fishing from the lake since 2007, she is now preparing to migrate to Thailand to find another source of income.

“Due to the development and landfill of the lake, We don’t have an income except to decide to migrate,” she said. “We used to depend on fishing, but when the authorities landfill the lake, my family and I got a big effect from it.”

Sophea, she asked the government to find justice for citizens and to let them live where they are because she thought that she would get enough income by living here, such as by selling drinking water.

“We have lost income from development, so we want to live in the development area,” she said. “We can do business [there].”

“We are deeply hurt and frustrated by the authorities,” she continued. “It is one of the most unfair things that the people of the lake have no right to live there while only high officials, companies and institutions have the right to live there.”

Following a BBC profile of prominent VOD reporter Mech Dara titled “Cambodia: ‘Every newsroom I worked in gets silenced’”, Dara’s former employer The Phnom Penh Post sought to undermine Dara’s credibility by negatively portraying his mental health..

In a February 17 editorial titled “The Post: “Shut down” and “silenced”?” The Post claimed they had not had the right to reply to BBC and disputed the characterization that Dara had left because the paper had changed ownership to a PR firm with close ties to the government in 2018.

But they also included a section titled “about Dara’s personality” where the unsigned editorial described Dara as a “coward”, “mentally impacted” with “prominent personality flaws.”

Dara declined to comment.

“All this probably seems childish to a global audience and is highly unlikely to negatively impact Dara’s glowing reputation abroad,” wrote J. Daniel Sims, Cambodia director for anti-trafficking NGO International Justice Mission, in a Twitter thread. “However, coordinated attacks like this carry serious weight locally and have the potential to dramatically alter public opinion about him.”

Sims noted that Dara had been one of the VOD reporters leading the publication’s sustained exposé into Cambodia’s human trafficking and scam industry.

“This is the most pernicious and dangerous form of propaganda as it effectively reduces the net political cost of any potential violence against him [Dara],” Sims added. “In a context like this one, the risks of such a horrifying outcome are anything but theoretical.”

Following the government-ordered shutdown of VOD last week, the outlet has been the subject of vulgar social media memes and its reporters continue to face personal attacks online and in government-aligned media.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has stated the VOD report which led him to revoke the outlet’s license last week was “fake news” and a political attack on the government.

“This is not the first time, and this time is too serious,” Hun Sen said Monday. “They intentionally attack both father [him] and son [Hun Manet] and destroy the government, you are trying to destroy me, it should be enough.”

Amidst the framing of VOD as fake news, Adhoc spokesperson Soeng Senkaruna said that there are few remaining media in Cambodia willing to report on negative issues. Freedom of press had been on the decline since the dissolution of the CNRP in 2017, he added.

“Now we see that the situation has gone backwards, which is worrying,” he said. “We do not want to see images of restrictions on the press and civil society in a democratic society, and this event has made journalists fearful of fulfilling their role to serve society and the people.”

PM defends sexual harassment of journalist

On Monday, Hun Sen rebuked a group of more than 40 civil society organizations after they released a joint-statement last week condemning the sexual harassment of a female VOD reporter on social media.

The letter was addressed to the Minister of Information, Minister of Women’s Affairs, Minister of Culture and Fine Arts, and the Minister of Post and Telecommunications, urging the ministries to take action against social media personality Pheng Vannak for verbally attacking a female reporter.

The letter stated that Pheng Vannak, who runs a self-titled social media news page, wielded misogynistic language against a female VOD reporter and demanded he apologize and attend gender sensitivity training. But the Prime Minister appeared to downplay Vannak’s comments.

“These NGOs were established only to oppose the government and not to do anything to protect women’s equality,” Hun Sen said during a February 20 speech to Phnom Penh university students. “When my sister [sister-in-law] died, she was insulted, my wife was insulted, my family was insulted, but you [NGOs] did not come out to defend, so next time don’t talk about double standards with me.”

Regarding the insults, Hun Sen was likely referring to statements made by exiled opposition figure Sam Rainsy, who mocked the death of the Prime Minister’s sister-in-law in early February.

“I am waiting to see if all civil society organizations are taking action to protect my family as well,” Hun Sen said, warning he could order investigations into the NGOs’ financing.

“If it is necessary to audit [the NGOs] to find out where the money came from, we have the right to do so and the Ministry of Interior or the Anti-Corruption Unit could investigate,” he added.

While no other ministry responded directly to the civil society statement as of Monday, the Ministry of Women’s affairs released a statement Monday which urged civil society organizations to remain neutral and not pursue political interests.

“We call on civil society organizations to adhere to professional ethics and display impartiality in the conduct of their work, avoiding the application of biased and double standards,” the statement read.

Chim Channeang, secretary general of the Cambodian NGO Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, signed the statement. She said the aims of the organizations signing the statement were not political.

“The role of civil society organizations is that we work in line with the government, our job is to work together as a government partner, and our role is to monitor the government,” she said. “For political parties, we do not interfere.”

Channeang said civil society organizations often receive money from abroad because Cambodia is a developing country with limited resources. She noted some government ministries also receive funding from foreign institutions.

“It does not mean…doing daily activities to serve foreign interests or doing whatever the foreigner wants, we bring that money just to contribute to the government and it helps develop the country and benefit the poor or minority groups in our community,” she said.

She said that condemning the harassment of the female VOD journalist was not a political act but was intended to promote greater protection of women.

“We are not taking sides, but the fact is that the girl who reported the news was insulted, and it is such a serious threat to make,” Channeang said. “It destroys her reputation, especially it affects her mental health.”

Backlash against VOD reporters

While international media, foreign embassies and numerous Cambodians mourned and condemned the closure of VOD in a series of articles, editorials and social media posts, VOD staff came under attack on social media and in government-aligned news outlets.

The day VOD’s license was revoked on February ,13 a series of Twitter users — many appearing to be fake accounts — began posting identical cartoons and messages applauding VOD’s closure with the hashtag #VODshithead.

The Twitter accounts shared cartoons which portrayed VOD as a tool of foreign agents such as “foreign embassies” and “NGO[s]”.

In one cartoon branded with the vulgar hashtag, a figure resembling the American icon Uncle Sam, in a tophat with the VOD logo, has a thought bubble attached reading “You must adhere to the strategies I have established” while painting Cambodia with paint labeled “human right” and “democracy.”

A group of white journalists stands watching and one says “Each of us must follow our boss’s instructions regarding fake reports. Our boss gives us money and protects us.”

Few of the comments received more than 100 views, according to Twitter.

The attacks on VOD reporters extended to government-aligned media.

NagaWorld union leader Chhim Sithar and eight co-defendants appeared for their first day of trial in Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday. Sithar and all her colleagues, except for one, denied the incitement charges against them.

Prosecutors claim that Sithar and her fellow union members are guilty of incitement to disturb security for leading a union strike for more than a year after Phnom Penh authorities declared the labor movement illegal.

Over the course of the three and a half hour hearing, Presiding judge Soeung Chakriya focused on questioning Sithar about the union’s funding, especially from international donors.

Sithar acknowledged she had requested and received funds to support the union’s activities from three international donors: U.S.-based non-profit East West Management Institute (EWMI), feminist NGO JASS and North American union Unite Here.

The three organizations could not be reached for comment.

Sithar said the union received $10,000 from EWMI, $15,000 from JASS and $5,000 from Unite Here as “humanitarian funds” to aid members laid off during Covid-19.

“I made proposals for receiving funds to support the union’s operations and humanitarian funds in helping members during COVID-19, and layoff jobs,” Sithar said.

Deputy prosecutor Seng Heang said that Sithar had led the illegal protest without permission from Phnom Penh municipal authorities and that international funds support the union’s illegal activities.

“I have observed they [workers] have protested [from] morning till evening with no other job [to support their livelihood],” he said.

“They’re volunteers who come [to strike] and they’re willing to do so,” Sithar replied.

She said the strike was peaceful, legal and protected by the Cambodian constitution’s right to freedom expression.

Approximately 1,300 workers initiated the strike on December 18, 2021 to demand the reinstatement of 365 laid off NagaWorld employees following mass lay-offs and lack of full severance pay. More than one year later, 100 employees still protest their lay-offs.

Sithar, president of the Labour Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employee of NagaWorld (LRSU), has stated the union has followed all legal protocol for the strike. The union has said it only launched a strike after all viable efforts at mediation were exhausted.

But Sithar and her eight fellow union members — Chhim Sokhorn, Hay Sopheap, Kleang Soben, Ry Sovandy, Sok Kongkea, Sok Narith, Sun Sreypich, and Touch Sereymeas — were arrested in January last year and placed in pre-trial detention. They were released from Prey Sar prison on bail in March.

Sithar was re-arrested in November last year and detained for allegedly violating bail.

Only one defendant, Kongkea, accepted the charges of incitement in court but later declined to speak with reporters.

Senior Adhoc investigator Yi Soksan said the government, Ministry of Labor and NagaWorld had unfairly dismissed efforts to resolve the strikers demands by instead handing the issue to the system.

“I see that the Royal Government as well as the Ministry of Labor does not seem to care about this labor dispute, they are [Nagaworld staff] laid off unfairly by the company and then the court charges with accusing them of inciting unrest and undermining social security.”

Ministry of Labor spokesperson Heng Sour said in a Telegram message to CamboJA that labor conflicts between former employees of NagaWorld have been settled at the court stage.

“However, he ministry will continue to mediate through the mechanism of the strike and demonstration commission at the request of the conflicting parties,” he said.

NagaWorld could not be reached for comment.

President of Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions Yang Sophorn attended the trial and said she believed LRSU members had legitimate reasons and legal cause to strike but this was ignored by the court.

“Prosecutor questioned tried to place blame, it isn’t about finding justice for Sithar only protecting the interests of the company,” Sophorn told CamboJA News. “[The court] does not mean to find justice for parties involved.”

“I think that the incitement charge was exaggerated because Sithar has tried to explain the root cause of striking and workers’ demands that they have a right to disagree with the employer,” Sophorn added.

Laid off NagaWorld union member Nop Tithboravy and around 100 fellow union members protested outside the court on the day of the hearing.

Tithboravy said she and her colleagues had received numerous threats from the government and struggled to support their families financially after more than one year of striking, refusing to accept the company’s terms.

“I hope the court will bring justice to everyone because we are doing a strike to seek freedom at our workplace and want to go back to work,” she said. “ We don’t have income to support our family, we want to go back to work.”

Tithboravy said the strikers would not end their strike unless the company reinstated all workers and the court dropped all charges against the union members.

The trial is scheduled to resume on February 28.

Outside the court following the hearing, Sithar’s younger brother Chhim Pros said his sister had only followed the law in leading the strike.

“[Sithar] has always helped people from a young age,” he said. “She is just an ordinary girl, she has no ability to destroy the peace in our country.”

The government this morning revoked the media operating licence of the Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM), parent of the bilingual outlet Voice of Democracy (VOD), one of Cambodia’s few remaining independent media outlets.

The Ministry of Information revoked the licence after Prime Minister Hun Sen and his son, army commander Hun Manet, took issue with a 9 February VOD article that featured reactions from various people. This included a comment from government spokesperson Phay Siphan regarding the claim that Hun Manet had signed an agreement providing financial assistance to Türkiye. Both Manet and the prime minister later took to social media to deny that Manet had signed the document.

On 11 February, Hun Sen wrote on his Facebook page that VOD had 72 hours to apologise to the government and Hun Manet, or else he would direct the Ministry of Information to revoke VOD’s media operating licence. He later shortened this arbitrary deadline to expire on 10am on 13 February. Article 10 of the Press Law specifies the right of public figures who believe media have published false allegations with malicious intent to demand a retraction and sue in court to demand retractions, compensation, or both.

Following a meeting with Ministry of Information officials on 12 February, CCIM issued a letter addressed to Hun Sen expressing VOD’s “regret” and requesting “forgiveness [for] any unintentional wrongdoing”. VOD Khmer also published an article that evening outlining Hun Sen and Hun Manet’s denials.

Hun Sen rejected the apology via a Facebook post, stating that he was unable to accept the words “regret” and “forgiveness” in place of the word “apologise”, and ordered the Ministry of Information to revoke VOD’s licence. CCIM issued an additional letter of apology. Hun Sen again rejected the apology on Facebook in the early morning of 13 February. Several internet service providers had blocked access to VOD’s websites as of this morning.

VOD has become one of the most important independent media outlets in the country in recent years, publishing in Khmer and English. VOD journalists have written more than 60 stories over more than a year documenting widespread slave compounds where trafficked people are forced to conduct cyberscams. In August last year, five VOD journalists were detained and one was struck by the prime minister’s bodyguard unit while reporting on the recently deforested Phnom Tamao forest. The outlet also published dozens of stories from across the country documenting the repressive political space in the lead-up to the 2022 Commune Elections.

The shutdown of an independent media outlet is similar to the crackdown on journalists ahead of the last national election in 2018. In late 2017, the Cambodia Daily was shuttered over an arbitrary tax bill and in 2018 the Phnom Penh Post was sold to a firm with links to the government while facing pressure following a similar arbitrary tax bill. The government also shuttered dozens of radio frequencies carrying broadcasts of Radio Free Asia (RFA), Voice of America (VOA) and VOD.

Around 900 workers at a Phnom Penh factory said the owner won’t let them resume work after a two-month suspension and alleged most of the suspended workers support a pro-worker union.

Of the around 1,700 workers at Zhen Tai factory in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district, around 900 were affected by a factory-requested suspension because there was a drop in orders, said Kim Sophen, president of the Workers’ Spirit Union at the factory.

Sophen said workers were paid $30 a month for the two months and returned to work on Monday but were not allowed into the factory nor were they told if the suspension was extended. They protested outside the factory and demanded to return to work, suggesting a rotation policy with workers still working at the factory.

“If there is no order or work, the factory should allow workers who have been suspended for two months to resume their work and move those who are working to relax in order to help everyone survive,” he said.

Mech Seanghai, deputy president of the union, said she had worked at the factory for 11 years and alleged that most of the suspended workers were supportive of the union.

She said the curtailed pay given to suspended workers was making it hard to live.

“The cost of renting a room alone is between $40 and $100. And the cost of food is also increasing. Therefore, $30 is definitely hard for us to make a living. We also need money to spend on our children’s studies and to pay back our debt to the bank,” she said.

Sin Thy, the factory’s deputy director of administration, declined to comment and directed questions to head of administration Oun Sophea, who could not be reached.

Vong Sovann, the Labor Ministry’s deputy director for dispute resolution, said the ministry had yet to hear from the factory but it was his understanding that the factory would continue the suspensions.

“I looked at the suspension document, the factory said it will suspend work until February 6. So, we will wait and see. We contacted the factory but they have not responded yet,” he said.

According to Sophen, Zhen Tai previously threatened the union when it sought to protect workers’ benefits when the suspensions were first announced, suing three union representatives. An investigating judge at Phnom Penh Municipal Court issued a summons calling Sophen, Kum Vandeth, secretary of the union, and Seanghai, for questioning on December 19, 2022.

The summons accused the three union representatives of leading workers to protest and asked for $37,500 in damages.

A small march vaguely calling for “morality” in the country’s politics faced obstacles within the first day of its planned 10-day trek from Phnom Penh to Pursat as authorities blocked them from sleeping at a pagoda.

Around 50 people gathered near Phnom Penh’s Wat Phnom on Wednesday to begin the nationalist march, as participants waved Cambodian and Buddhist flags.

The march was organized by the Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association, an opposition-aligned body formerly led by union leader Rong Chhun, who recently joined the Candlelight Party.

The association’s current director, Ouk Chhayavy, said at the start of the march that ethics among both the rich and poor were declining in Cambodia, and the country was headed toward “ethical disaster.”

But all the examples and demands of such immorality she and the protesters raised were political.

“We do this pilgrimage because we have seen society facing a huge immorality crisis, including the top person — the prime minister has also used abusive language,” Chhayavy said. “We want to see all ranks of people unite and use good and sweet language to each other.”

Unionist Chhun, known for racially tinged anti-Vietnamese comments, called for the release of political prisoners.

“We have to end this kind of culture of considering all Khmer as enemies. We must unite to lift up this poor country and make it as glorious as other countries,” Chhun said.

He said on Thursday that the group was unable to sleep at a pagoda in Kandal’s Ponhea Leu overnight as the pagoda chief asked them to get permission from the commune chief, who told them to ask the district governor, who refused. They stayed in villagers’ homes instead, he said.

In the afternoon, he said the group was now in Kampong Chhnang and could again face difficulties finding a place to sleep.

The group has issued four demands: political reconciliation, end of political harassment, release of political prisoners, and for Cambodians to stop taking sides in politics.

Cambodian Institute for Democracy president Pa Chanroeun said the public might be sympathetic to the march as many people in the country remained Buddhist.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak, however, said last month that in his opinion, he didn’t think the pilgrimage would bring any good to society, and questioned how the association was assessing a decline in ethics.

“If they based this pilgrimage like they said in the letter on society’s ethics declining, what measurement did they use? What did they base it on? What kind of scale did they use? Generally when we say something, we need to speak reasonably. Going down?” Sopheak said. “This is just my own opinion, but I don’t think it benefits anything.”

The warning came after the prominent teachers’ union announced it would be holding a 10-day march from Phnom Penh to Kandal, Kampong Speu, Kampong Chhnang, and Pursat provinces starting February 10 to raise attention to issues of injustice.

In response, the ministry said only 50 participants would be permitted to join and also said that a December demonstration at Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park calling for the release of political prisoners violated an order by the Phnom Penh municipality banning their marches.

The same letter said that the association would need to send documentation outlining its bank accounts and financial activities over the past year.

“In case the association does not implement the spirit of the letter above, the Ministry of Interior will take legal measures according to the law,” it continued.

Yearly financial reports are required under the Law on Association and Non-governmental Organization (LANGO), a controversial law passed in 2015 that rights groups and many legal experts say is aimed at stifling NGO activity.

Uk Chhayavy, president of CITA, told CamboJA that the ministry’s letter is intended to threaten the group in response to its efforts to raise awareness of rights abuses by the government.

“This is an image to threaten us for being scary, but for me, I am not afraid because what I have done follows the law,” she said.

“We will submit [our records] to the Interior Ministry, but our association does not have funds, and has no money in its bank account,” Chhayavy said.

However, she said that her association is preparing its report and will be submitting to the ministry by its deadline. Chhayavy added that donors had stopped providing funds to the association about six years ago, and the association now survives from membership fees and personal volunteers.

She also defended the previous demonstration, noting that it followed the Law on Peaceful Assembly, which requires only that authorities be informed of a planned demonstration.

Ny Sokha, president of rights group Adhoc, said that while the Interior Ministry’s request for financial reports followed the law, the larger aim of such laws was to pressure NGOs.

“Generally, the nature of LANGO is to put restrictions on the rights and freedom,” he said.

Vorn Pao, president of Independent Democratic of Informal Economic Association, said that the letter appeared intended to serve as pressure to scare away the public from joining the planned February march.

“I think that the state [Interior Ministry] should not issue the letter asking for a financial report, while they have already allowed the association to hold the gathering,” he said.

“It has added more pressure on the association and emotional pressure on them and a strategy to show the public not to join that event,” Pao said.

The planned February 10 march will see teachers, students, and others gathering at Wat Phnom before setting off on National Road 5. The final destination is in Pursat province, at a statue of Khleang Moeung — a sixteenth century military leader who has gained mythical status as a guardian spirit.

Interior Ministry spokesperson, Khieu Sopheak, said that the letter contained no threats, and only outlined the legal situation.

“It is their business whatever they want to say, and how can we threaten, it is just a small association,” he said.

“We have not seen their reports, that is the reason we tell them to submit it,” Sopheak said. “We want to know what bank account they have been using right now,” he said.

Sopheak added that the ministry has allowed only 50 participants to march and they need to cooperate with authorities and police in each province.

“We have allowed only 50 participants in the meeting. Note that if there are more, [we] we will take action,” he said.

Three hundred Tuol Sangke market vendors gathered outside the Interior Ministry this week to support three fellow vendors who were being questioned for alleged incitement for protesting new market rental rates.

The market vendors from Phsar Samhan market in Russei Keo district’s Tuol Sangke commune said they gathered outside the ministry on Monday to monitor the questioning of three other vendors who were being accused of incitement for participating in a protest against the doubling of market fees.

Voth Ravy, one of the 300 vendors, said the new market owner, Kim Chhay, wanted the vendors to pay $3,000 for a two-year contract to sell at the market, more than doubling the $1,500 the old owners charged for a three-year contract.

The vendors decided to protest against the move, which is when Chhay accused the three of incitement.

“We had never protested against anything before this new owner came in; we protested because he oppressed us too hard,” he said.

“Just think about it — Covid has just ended! And the business is not going well at all. How can we have enough to pay $2,000 to $3,000 for one shop?”

Srun Phy, one of the three people summoned, said he never incited other vendors and did not try to harm the new owners. Protests broke out only because the new owner was being hard on them, Phy said.

“About this incitement thing, I refuse it all because what we did was unite. We did it together. I did not call or ask them to join me,” Phy said.

Interior Ministry spokesperson Khieu Sopheak said only that people had left the ministry after the questioning and that the ministry was still assessing the complaint.

VOD could not reach Chhay, the new market owner.

Last year, vendors at Phnom Penh’s O’Russei Market also protested when they were asked to pay a 10% increase in market fees for a new contract lasting 20 years. The vendors said they were still recovering from the pandemic and refused to pay the increase in fees.

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court this morning denied bail to Chhim Sithar, president of the Labor Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees of Nagaworld (LRSU), ordering her to remain in pre-trial detention in Correctional Center 2 prison. No reason was given for the denial.

Sithar was first arrested in January 2022 and spent two months in pre-trial detention after being charged with incitement alongside other members of her union. She was released on bail in March 2022, but she was again arrested in November by immigration police at the Phnom Penh International Airport while returning from a labour rights conference in Australia.

Authorities accused Sithar of violating bail conditions by leaving the country, despite neither Sithar nor her lawyers ever being informed of such conditions. She has been detained at Correctional Center 2 prison since 26 November 2022.

LRSU members have been striking since December 2021 following mass layoffs at the NagaWorld casino that included the union’s entire leadership and a significant number of members.

Sithar and 8 fellow LRSU leaders and members face up to two years in prison if they are convicted of incitement. Another six LRSU members were charged in February under the 2021 Covid-19 Law. In October, at least 18 additional union members were slapped with charges of breaking and entering; intentionally causing damage with aggravating circumstances; and unlawful arrest, detention and confinement, in a criminal case that also references more than 100 unnamed "followers".

NagaWorld union members are alleging that ABA Bank blocked three transactions to their accounts from an overseas donor while giving various explanations about negative news of the union in the press or anti-money laundering measures.

The Labor Rights Supported Union of NagaWorld casino has been in dispute with the gambling corporation over the termination of 1,300 workers in 2021, out of which fewer than 200 workers are holding out for reinstatement. The protests have often taken a violent turn when district security guards and police officers use force to break up gatherings.

Three NagaWorld union members said they were expecting transfers from an overseas sender in October to support protesters without jobs or with babies, but were separately informed by a person saying they were from ABA Bank that the transfers were blocked.

Chhim Sokhorn and Klaing Soben told VOD they were expecting $5,050 each to be transferred into their ABA accounts. The two NagaWorld casino workers said they did not know where the money was coming from as union president Chhim Sithar was handling the grant application.

Sithar has been in pretrial detention since November when she was rearrested for allegedly breaking her bail conditions. Sithar, who was at a bail hearing at a Phnom Penh court last week, told VOD the grant was from the Urgent Action Fund in Australia, a feminist group in Australia that supports movements led by women and nonbinary activists.

VOD was unable to interview Sithar further in court.

Sokhorn and Soben both said they were separately contacted by an ABA staffer in October who questioned them on what they would do with the $5,050 transfers and raised the union’s ongoing dispute as the reason why the transactions had been blocked.

Sokhorn said an ABA employee named Sroy Mengty first contacted her on messaging application Telegram on October 13 and then on two other occasions on the 14th and 26th of the same month.

According to text and audio messages between the two of them on Telegram, Mengty informs Sokhorn on October 13 that the transfers will not be processed because of the “negative news about NagaWorld.” When he asks what the money will be used for, Sokhorn tells him it was to assist unemployed union members and for workers with children.

Mengty further says on the 14th: “The reason is because you don’t have proper documents for the money and have negative news about NagaWorld.”

Sokhorn continues to ask Mengty why the money was blocked, whether it was being sent back to the sender in Australia, and if her account had been frozen. He doesn’t reply until the 26th.

“It is because of the policy of the bank in case there is money laundering,” Mengty informs Sokhorn in a message on the 26th.

“From ABA, the money has been returned back. But I don’t know if an intermediary bank is involved. So it is out of our hands,” he adds, then stops replying to subsequent messages.

Sokhorn said she felt it was suspicious that the bank staffer would message her on Telegram, and not give her a single clear reason for blocking the money.

“The grant was to support protesting workers who don’t have jobs and those with babies. It was not for the protests but for those without jobs,” she said.

Soben, who was elected union treasurer last year, received similar text and voice messages from Mengty starting October 19. He asks her what the money is going to be used for, saying he needs to know before he can allow the “frozen” transaction to proceed.

“He said he needs to check if nothing bad will happen [with the money] and only then can he send it through,” Soben said in December.

Soben was first worried that her account would be frozen — a frequent conduit for small donations the union gets for supporting terminated workers. A week later, Mengty tells her that the money has been permanently blocked and sent back to the sender, but that her account is still active.

The two workers said they were unsure if the restrictions on their account were potentially because of bail conditions imposed on them following arrests related to the ongoing strike. Lawyers for Sithar have argued in court that jailed workers released on bail were not told the full conditions for their release.

VOD contacted Igor Zimarev, ABA’s chief marketing officer, and Khuon Pinoch, public relations supervisor, over the last two weeks, but they did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Emails sent to the Urgent Action Fund in Australia also went unanswered this week.

Terminated workers at the NagaWorld casino and represented by the union have said they are facing financial hardships as part of the prolonged labor action against the casino corporation.

The union’s registration has yet to be renewed by the Labor Ministry after elections last year for senior leadership because the ministry says the elected leaders, like Sithar, Sokhorn and Soben, are no longer employees of the casino. Soben said the union’s official bank account with Acleda bank had been frozen because the union’s registration was not renewed.

Separately, to raise funds for workers, Nop Tithboravy, a union member, started a $1 campaign encouraging donations to her personal Acleda bank account to support workers who were holding out against NagaWorld.

Last August, supporters of the union in Australia tried to transfer around $1,000 to her Acleda account but were unable to send the money. Tithboravy decided to ask Acleda why the transfers were blocked.

“The [senders] recommended I ask the bank and I went to ask them. But the banker said nothing was wrong with the back account. It was still running as normal,” Tithboravy said.

Unlike her colleagues, the bank staff did not ask about her union affiliation or why the money was being transferred. She was left confused because she had previously received transfers from overseas and continues to get domestic donations.

She also rued the lost opportunity to get support for workers.

“When people tried to send the money to support us again and again they couldn’t send it. So they also felt less interest to keep supporting us,” she said.

In Channy, the president of Acleda, asked the NagaWorld workers to contact bank staff because he cannot discuss these issues publicly.

“She should come to meet,” he said. “For these kinds of cases, we can’t put [the information] in public. She should come and they will explain it to her.”

ABA touts itself as one of the top three commercial banks in the country and has 2.1 million customers. The bank is also popular for the omnipresence of its branded QR codes that have become synonymous for bank transfers. ABA was also among a number of banks that last year blocked transfer attempts out of Cambodia to support the fighting in Ukraine.

Snguon Nhoeun, a Kampong Chhnang land activist, said he was detained for two hours by police after taking photos of a protest outside the provincial court.

Around 50 protesters were lighting incense and praying outside the court on January 18 when he was pushed into a car and had three phones seized, Nhoeun said. Police asked him to delete the images and sign a contract, he said.

“They said I took pictures without permission,” he said. “My arrest is very unfair for me because I was only shooting in public and they arrested me. I think the court has something to hide from me.”

Nhoeun added that he worked as a citizen journalist to cover the activities. Nhoeun is part of the Lor Peang community, which has long been in dispute with KDC International, a company owned by Energy Minister Suy Sem’s wife and accused of bulldozing people’s homes.

“This is a serious threat to me. This act threatens not only me … it threatens other citizens who want to photograph in front of the court,” he said.

Kampong Chhnang Provincial Court spokesperson Hak Kimhong denied that any arrests had been made. He said that authorities had only held him to explain some problems. He said the reason why the police detained and confiscated the phone was because Nhoeun was broadcasting live in front of the court without permission so the prosecutor ordered a temporary confiscation.

“I would like to deny his arrest. It is not true. We just explained to him where to shoot and where not to shoot.”

Kampong Chhnang Provincial Police spokesperson Ear Bunthoeun declined to comment on the case, saying the order to detain Nhoeun was made by the prosecutor’s office.

Lawyers for Chea Kheng, Energy Minister Sem’s wife, told The Cambodia Daily in 2010 to not mention the minister in articles about the Lor Peang-KDC International land dispute or they would sue for spreading “disinformation.”

Youth environmental activists advocating against the development of a Koh Kong island say they are facing threats and surveillance after authorities blocked an advocacy push at a Royal University of Phnom Penh event earlier this month.

A group of about 50 young activists organized a stall at an RUPP event in mid-January selling coconuts, providing leaflets and talks on the potential development of Koh Kong Krao island in Koh Kong province. Activists from Mother Nature and Khmer Thavrak have advocated for the government to refrain from leasing the island for development.

The stall — which was set up during the 63rd anniversary celebrations of the university — was shut down by district officials and university staff who considered it against university policies, activists said.

Since then, the activists allege they have faced surveillance from local authorities.

Phuon Keoreaksmey, a fourth-year university student and a Mother Nature activist, said the group was initially allowed to set up the stall in the university premises during the anniversary celebrations hosted from January 13th to 15th.

But on the first day of the event, local authorities and the university’s rector summoned them for a meeting and said they had to close down the stall and were banned from distributing any leaflets with messages about Koh Kong Krao island.

“They dare not to follow their own decision and work based on the advice of another person,” she said.

Kim Chilin, a Mother Nature activist and RUPP student, said authorities were monitoring his residence and even following him since then. He said this was a threat and aimed at affecting the morale of activists advocating for environmental rights.

“Me and my friends were followed by authorities to our homes. This is a kind of threat. For me, I think that it should not have happened to me,” he said.

Last month, activists also distributed pamphlets and held banners at the university’s Institute for Foreign Languages, urging authorities to not allow the development of the island. The Environment Ministry in 2020 said it was assessing whether to allow for development of the island, which was granted to notorious tycoon Ly Yong Phat, who got the development rights to the island in 2019.

Men Sreydav, another activist who was part of the advocacy effort, said authorities began following members of the group as soon as they distributed the leaflets.

“Generally, they followed us to our houses after our dissemination activities. I am worried about my safety because I always come out to do activities,” he said.

VOD could not reach Phnom Penh City Hall spokesperson Met Measpheakdey and Tuol Kork deputy district governor Teav Sam Oeun denied the accusations.

“I would like to deny that authority did not threaten them,” he said. “Whenever they have proper permission, we will cooperate immediately.”

The government has routinely blocked youth and environmental activists for advocating for their issues, even arresting and jailing them.

A right group’s head has been questioned by cybercrime police over the NGO’s involvement in releasing a rap video commemorating the ninth anniversary of bloody clashes between security personnel and garment workers.

Am Sam Ath, operations director at Licadho, was questioned by the cybercrime unit of the Phnom Penh Municipal Police on Monday. Sam Ath said he was asked where the NGO got the images and videos for the music video, and that police officials asked the NGO to take down the video.

He said the video was not meant to incite and that the NGO does not want violence like what was seen in 2014 to be repeated.

“We don’t support violent events. That is why we ask for it to be prevented from happening anymore, meaning we don’t support violence no matter which party does it,” he said.

Sam Ath added that only Licadho’s management committee as a whole could decide to take down the video.

Licadho and labor rights NGO Central released the video, sung by rapper Kea Sokun, on January 3, marking nine years since violence erupted on Phnom Penh’s Veng Sreng Boulevard, when workers were on general strike demanding an increase to the minimum wage.

The video is titled “Workers Blood” and uses visuals of the violence, including images of workers being beaten by security personnel. The video also uses clips from media outlets like Radio Free Asia, showing military police in riot gear marching into factory and housing premises on Veng Sreng Boulevard while bleeding workers are carried away by their peers.

“For the past nine years they have been left with pain and sorrow and sadness by gestures full of blood,” Sokun says in the song.

“There is no information and they do not know where they have drifted away. There is no one who knows, and they have been waiting for justice for the past nine years, waiting so long but there is no one held responsible.”

At least four civilians were killed, another 38 were injured, and one 15-year-old boy went missing and is believed to be dead.

Sokun previously was arrested and convicted in 2020 for another rap song with nationalist lyrics like “stand up,” “I’m opposed to the dictator,” and “the other race is encroaching.”

Apart from Sam Ath, VOD has seen summon letters for three other civil society leaders: Moeun Tola, who heads Central; Vorn Pov, president of informal worker association IDEA; and Theng Savoeun, leader of the Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community.

Tola and Pov are summoned on Tuesday, and Savoeun is scheduled to be questioned on Wednesday.

Tola said he would present himself on Tuesday but was unsure what questions the police would have for him.

“It is remembering nine years since the violence happened. … I will wait and see what the police want to know about it,” he said in brief comments.

San Sokseyha, a Phnom Penh Municipal Police spokesperson, said the Culture Ministry had asked the police to look into the video because of its incendiary lyrics. He confirmed four people had been summoned.

“We just summoned, questioned and advised him about this issue to avoid [problems] as stated by the ministry that [the video] can provoke and incite, which could affect security and public order,” he said.

Last week, the Culture Ministry asked the National Police to restrict access to the video.

Kampong Speu residents accused soldiers of threatening to use violence against a monk trying to protect the community’s Metta forest, confiscating his phone to stop him from taking photos of their activities.

Teok Mao, a member of the Metta forest community in Oral district, said soldiers threatened violence against the monk, who lives in the forest and was taking photos of soldiers plowing land that was previously part of the forest.

The soldiers grabbed the monk’s phone during the incident on Friday to stop him taking photos, Mao said.

It was not the first violent incident in the forest dispute, he pointed out, referring to previous gunshots amid confrontations between community members and soldiers.

“We have to keep all of this evidence and not allow them to go further,” he said. “They destroyed the forest and destroyed all the evidence.”

In 2021, a government sub-decree granted 262 hectares of forest land to the military’s armored vehicle military unit. The land is part of the Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary and has traditionally been used by about 253 families, according to rights group Licadho.

Another community member, Khorn Sarith, said the soldiers had been active in the cleared parts of the forest, dredging for sand and digging boundaries.

“They plow and place marker poles. When community members stop them, they leave, but when we return home, they come to do it again. They do this almost every day.”

Pen Sarin, who villagers said was the soldier leading the clearing of Metta forest, denied any threats and said soldiers were only clearing the land the government had given them.

In the span of three days, 23-year-old Phon Sao went from forming a union to unemployed.

The Bright Flushing factory worker in Takeo province contested the union’s first election on October 29, but saw two unknown people at the election taking photographs and decided to withdraw.

Two days later she was signing resignation documents under duress.

“I asked them for a reason. But they didn’t tell me the reason,” she said on Thursday.

The case of Sao and Workers’ Rights Protection Union of Bright Flushing at the Takeo factory was documented by labor rights NGO Central to illustrate long-held concerns over the formation of new unions on the factory floor, including use of the controversial Law on Trade Unions to install potential bureaucratic hurdles.

In the past 14 months, at least seven factory-level unions have reported obstacles in registering new unions under law. Union leaders say they have been fired or their contracts not renewed to block union formation, and in some cases the Labor Ministry has dragged its feet on processing registration documents.

These concerns are exacerbated, say unions and labor advocates, when one takes into account alleged union-busting attempts throughout the COVID-19 pandemic at both NagaWorld casino and other industries.

The union at Bright Flushing was formed to advocate against working on holidays and weekends, said Sao. But since her departure from the factory, a number of founding members have quit the union.

Central provided VOD with documentation of the case — which includes intimidation of union founding members, alleged forced resignations of the union president and other members — and increased harassment after staff from sports brand Puma met with the workers to discuss issues with union formation.

Yum Oun, who was voted union secretary at Bright Flushing, said the union was formed to make sure workers got sick leave and because the factory was routinely violating the Labor Law by terminating workers.

“A lot of staff were fired. They have no job. I don’t when they can return back to work,” she said.

Central also documented six other cases of union formation in the last 14 months, all showing instances of bureaucratic delays, intimidation of workers and termination of union leaders and found members. Below are two examples showing similar patterns in the union formation process at I Tao Pet Supplies and ML Intimate Apparel.

Commune authorities in Pursat province allegedly barred a celebration in the lead up to the United Nations’ Human Rights Day on Sunday, according to environmental activist Kuch Veng, the event’s would-be organizer.

“They don’t want me to hold an anniversary because they are afraid of us understanding our rights and they are afraid their reputations will be affected for having failed to respect human rights issues,” said Veng, 58.

Veng, 58, said commune authorities, police and security guards blocked the gate of Ratanak Raingsei pagoda in Krakor district’s Kbal Trach commune, where he had planned to hold a celebratory event in commemoration of the 76th anniversary of Human Rights Day on December 10.

Veng said he had planned to celebrate the anniversary early because he would be harvesting his rice paddy the following week. After being barred from the pagoda, the approximately 40 participants held the event at a community member’s home.

Met Samol, Kbal Trach commune deputy commune chief, said the commune had not banned Veng from holding an event related to Human Rights Day. She said the commune asked Veng to first gain approval from district authorities.

“We have asked him to get permission from the district governor, but he didn’t go,” she said. “The commune level is low and officials dare not give permission.”

Another Kbal Trach commune resident, Loun Sivy, who planned to attend the event, said getting approval from district authorities was unnecessary.

“We are saddened that authorities prevented us from holding a human rights celebration [at the pagoda], it seemed like authorities discriminate against us,” she said. “We have done nothing wrong, and we have already informed the commune authorities, we do not need permission from district officials.”

Krakor district governor Liv Senghim and the Ratanak Raingsei pagoda chief monk could not be reached for comment.

Nguon Sarun, a commune clerk, said that the district authorities instructed Veng to invite commune officials to attend any events related to Human Rights Day but complained they had not been invited.

“If he [Veng] holds an event, please allow commune officials to join because we are the parents of the villagers,” he said.

Sarun said the commune had also requested all the event participants identify themselves in advance of the event but Veng had failed to provide this information.

“He [Veng] has a stubborn character and refused [to invite] commune officials to attend the event,” Sarun said. “He doesn’t cooperate well with the commune.”

Am Sam Ath, operations director for human rights group Licadho, said he was disappointed local authorities prohibited a community from holding a celebration of international human rights.

“The prevention does not show a good image and threatens and restricts the freedom of the community,” he said.

He added Cambodia had made no progress on improving human rights this year, even as international observers and national human rights groups called on the government to restore democratic norms and civic freedoms.

Katta Orn, spokesperson for the government-run Cambodian Human Rights Committee, said the Pursat authorities’ actions were justified because the event’s organizers had allegedly not followed proper protocol.

“The prevention does not mean to restrict citizens’ fundamental right to freedom of assembly,” he said. “The community had not correctly requested [the event].”

Chak Sopheap, executive director at the NGO Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said the Pursat authorities violated the fundamental right to freedom of assembly enshrined in the Cambodian Constitution.“The authorities are reminded that citizens are not required to request the authorities’ permission, but only to notify them of assemblies,” she said. “Critical voices continue to face intimidation, threats, judicial harassment, and sometimes physical attacks for expressing their opinions both offline and online.”

Chhim Sithar will remain in pretrial detention for incitement after the Phnom Penh Municipal Court turned down the casino union leader’s appeal for bail, a rights group said.

Sithar was arrested late last month after returning from an overseas labor conference.

Initially arrested in January over ongoing worker protests against NagaWorld, she was released on bail after promising she would stop participating.

Licadho, a local human rights NGO, said on Monday that its lawyer, who was part of Sithar’s legal team, had received a notice from the court today that she would remain in detention.

Sithar was rearrested at the Phnom Penh airport after returning from Australia. Authorities said she had been banned from traveling as part of her earlier bail conditions, but her defense has said they had not been told of the restriction.

Another of her lawyers, Sam Chamroeun, said he was busy Monday afternoon and could not immediately comment.

NagaCorp laid off 1,300 workers amid Covid-19 and is accused of union-busting for targeting labor leaders who the workers say should have been protected from termination.

More than 100 workers continue to resist their terminations as the protests against the Phnom Penh casino reach almost one year.

Dozens of protesters stood outside NagaWorld in orange prison jumpsuit-like outfits on Monday in support of Sithar, a live video by worker Mam Sovathin showed.

In addition to several union leaders like Sithar who still face incitement charges, some others have been questioned over an unclear NagaCorp court complaint about alleged breaking and entering. Unionists have also been summoned to testify over the company’s request for a court ruling on the protracted labor dispute.

Another NagaWorld worker was questioned by a Phnom Penh court on Tuesday in a case filed by the casino corporation, where very little has been made public about the events leading to the charges.

NagaWorld workers have been protesting against the casino corporation for firing more than 1,300 workers last year, with little more than 100 workers refusing to accept termination compensation. After months of strikes and protests, the casino corporation filed a court complaint against at least nine workers alleging breaking and entering, intentional damage and illegal confinement.

But workers say they are unclear what incident the charges are based on. Several workers who have already been questioned in the case said they were only shown photos of them standing outside the casino complex protesting.

Seak Panha, 32, appeared in court on Tuesday and was questioned for around 90 minutes. She was asked about her participation in the protests and if anyone ordered her to join the labor action. She said the investigating judge repeated these questions even though she gave the same answers.

She was also shown the photos of the protesters outside the casino on August 19 and 20 but said that she was not in any of the photos.

“The questions are to pressure the workers. For me, it is mental pressure,” she said after her questioning. “Taking the court procedures forward is like a mental threat to us to stop protesting against the Naga company.”

Unionist Nop Tithboravy said seven workers had been questioned in the case and two others were scheduled to be questioned on December 15 and 27, respectively.

Apart from the criminal charges, NagaCorp has also filed a civil suit to get a court to enforce its compensation package for workers. While most workers have accepted compensation, the Ministry of Labor said 124 have yet to take severance packages.

The court is still investigating charges against around a dozen NagaWorld union leaders and members, with union leader Chhim Sithar, who was on bail, arrested at the Phnom Penh Airport for allegedly violating her bail conditions. She had traveled to Australia for a labor conference but the court said she was not allowed to leave the country, as per her bail conditions.

Journalists and environmental activists in Cambodia are criticizing authorities’ filing of charges against three reporters accused of taking bribes to cover up illegal logging in a northern province, saying the loggers themselves should also be charged.

Mom Vibal, 44, Tin Try, 29, and Tin Sitha, 27 — reporters for online and television news outlets in Preah Vihear province — were taken into custody on Nov. 23 and charged with extortion following a lawsuit filed by Vietnamese logging company PNT.

The three are accused of demanding that U.S.$4,000 be paid to a group of four, including the three now under arrest, in exchange for blocking information on illegal purchases of timber by PNT, according to local media accounts.

Company representatives then offered the group U.S.$2,000 and invited the journalists to a meeting where they were taken into custody by provincial police, media reports said. The name of the fourth person suspected of involvement in the extortion attempt was not reported.

Speaking to RFA, Tin Chamroeun — a brother-in-law of Tin Try and Tin Sitha — said that they had not committed the alleged crimes, and that they had never received the money offered to them in bribes.

“The illegal trader was freed, but the journalists were put in jail,” he said. “I want to see equal justice granted by the court.”

Attempt to deter reporting?

Local journalists called the group’s arrest an attempt to deter other journalists from looking into the illegal logging trade.

“Some journalists are afraid of being arrested if they report on illegal logging,” said Try Sophal, a reporter for Preah Vihear’s Hang Meas TV.

The fact that the reporters were taken into custody while the timber traders escaped charges shows that Cambodia’s laws are unequally applied, he added.

Srey Thai, a member of Preah Vihear’s Prey Lang Forest protection network, said that provincial authorities have consistently failed to take action against forest crimes committed in Prey Lang, an officially protected area, by PNT and other companies.

“The reporters were definitely in the wrong if they accepted bribes, but the loggers also broke the law, so both sides should be held equally accountable,” he said.

Nop Vy, executive cirector at the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association, or CamboJA, called on provincial and court authorities to carefully investigate the case.

“The crimes that reporters have revealed have never been investigated, which has only encouraged further illegal logging,” he said.

A CCJ report for 2021 says that nearly 100 journalists faced harassment during the year, including 49 cases of physical assault, threats of violence, arrests and torture. Others were hit with lawsuits, and 37 journalists were jailed on charges of “incitement,” “extortion” and other crimes.

Attempts to reach Preah Vihear Provincial Prosecutor Ty Sovinthal and Sat Nak, a representative of the Vietnamese company PNT, were unsuccessful Thursday.

‘Traditions destroyed’

Illegal deforestation and government restrictions on forest access are undermining the spiritual practices, land rights, and livelihoods of one of Cambodia’s largest indigenous groups, according to a report by Amnesty International issued in early January.

The report, “’Our Traditions Are Being Destroyed’: Illegal Logging, Repression, and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Violations in Cambodia’s Protected Forests,” says illegal logging has been particularly damaging to the Kuy people in the Prey Lang and Prey Preah Roka rainforests, which contain protected wildlife sanctuaries.

The Prey Lang Forest runs through Kampong Thom, Preah Vihear, Kratie and Stung Treng provinces in northern Cambodia, while Prey Preah Roka is in Preah Vihear province.

Cambodia’s rate of deforestation is among the world’s fastest, and a survey published in 2020 by U.S. and EU monitors showed that Prey Lang lost more than one football pitch, or 1.76 acres, of woodlands to illegal logging every hour of 2019.

Some 200 unions and federations have accused two prominent independent labor organizations of inciting its members to leave and establish a new union. The claim was denied by one of organizations, which said it has never trained members of any of the signatories — many of whom are affiliated with the government or ruling Cambodian People’s Party.

Two separate letters were sent on Monday, November 28 to the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS) and the Center for Alliance and Human Rights (CENTRAL) accusing the labor groups of breaking solidarity among their union members. In the letter, the signatories claimed that during trainings hosted by CENTRAL and ACILS, union representatives were urged to leave their unions and create new ones, and were promised technical and financial support.

“We are closely continuing to monitor the activity of CENTRAL, and if there is no stop to the ill-intention, we will take thorough measures by complaining to the relevant ministry and authority,” reads the petition, which goes on to say the defections weaken union power and impact employee protections.

Soung Hout, president of the National Union Alliance Chambers Cambodia (NACC), which signed the petition, told CamboJA that the letter was intended to serve: “just as a warning for reconsideration,” he said.

He declined to provide evidence that the groups had encouraged defections, saying unions were still gathering proof to share with the public.

“I’m not able to provide this yet. But for the documents and evidence, we have found it in hand while the team is still collecting more,” Hout said.

Tep Kimvannary, president of signatory Cambodia Confederation of Trade Union, echoed Huot’s comments saying that the training courses organized by ACILS and CENTRAL regularly lead to a rupture among unionists.

“I do not know how much [people were lobbied] I do not know. But most of the time, as they said, after [unionists] come back from the training, there is a problem of disunity.”

She said did not know how many people were lobbied to form a new union, or when such lobbying took place, adding that she only knew that there was a rift after they returned from training.

Moeun Tola, CENTRAL executive director, denied the accusation, saying they would never incite people to form their own union and had never even trained members of any of the 200 signatory groups.

“We do not have a principle to split up any unions, so the accusation is entirely wrong,” he said.

“We do not work with unions who are under influence by the political party [CPP], so for that reason we have no projects and activity to work with those unions,” he said.

He noted that the accusations had been made only by CPP-affiliated unions, and were doubtless politically motivated and intended to hamper the work of independent rights organizations.

“The accusation that staffers at CENTRAL lobbied their members to create a new union, — I have found nothing true in it,” Tola said.

“I have seen that it is intentionally a political tactic to threaten and persecute the organization and association that has worked to serve society and worker’s interest and human rights protection,” he said.

Meanwhile, the government mouthpiece Fresh News published an article on Thursday saying the tactics outlined in the signed union letter were the same as those used by Kem Sokha, who formed rights group CCHR, the Human Rights Party, and the merged opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party — which the article claims tried to foment a color revolution.

The article also claimed CENTRAL was helping NagaWorld strikers receive funding from foreign sources.

Last week, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court sent NagaWorld unionist Chhim Sithar to pre-trial detention, saying she had violated the terms of her court-ordered supervision, a court official said.

Sithar, who heads the Labor Rights Supported Union, was arrested on Saturday at the Phnom Penh International Airport after returning from a labor conference in Australia.

Sithar was originally arrested in January and released on bail in March. She and seven other union leaders face charges of incitement related to the NagaWorld protests — which have been ongoing since mass layoffs in 2021.

Leaders from independent unions said they believed the media reports and complaint letters were unwarranted.

Ath Thorn, president of the Cambodian Labour Confederation, said he believed that the accusations against CENTRAL were related to their advocacy on behalf of striking NagaWorld workers.

“First I think it is related to support in advocacy of NagaWorld employees, and second because CENTRAL has some activities related to union members,” he said.

“In my view, the organizations should carry out their work related to organization jobs, like providing legal assistance, but activities to collect and inform [union] members let unions do it instead,” Thorn said.

Yang Sophorn, the president of the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Union, expressed that the actions that led to such a petition could not have happened without the go-ahead from someone in power.

“And if they have the right evidence, as I mentioned earlier, if there is the right evidence, it must be clear which companies the two institutions incited,” she said.

“They are not an independent union defending the rights of workers, they are a union that supports the interests of employers or the government, to put it bluntly. Even in the past, their work has never supported [workers],” she added.

Ou Tep Phallin, the president of the Cambodian Food and Service Workers Federation, said that those involved in defending workers’ rights are often subjected to such harassment.

“For us, we are not surprised. Because we are defending the rights of workers, we have to suffer from those who are unhappy, because we are going to snatch their interests, we are going to increase the power of the workers, the power of those who are already in power.” she said.

Am Sam Ath, operations director of Licadho, urged unions and confederations to find a peaceful resolution and avoid taking any legal measures.

“It is not the right way to confront others who work to serve the worker’s interest… The public will see no good image of alliance between people who have worked to serve society as unions, organization,” he said.

William Conklin, executive director at ACILS, could not be reached for comment.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly implied both organizations had responded to claims made in the letter.

Footwear unionists in Takeo were summoned and questioned by military police after attending a Women’s Crisis Center training in Phnom Penh, saying officers asked who was behind them and warned them of illegal protests.

Union leaders from Tram Kak district’s Shoe Premier II, which has supplied boots to the U.S., attended a training course on November 16 on rights in the workplace, gender issues and sexual harassment, said Chhan Samoeun, president for the Workers’ Movement Union at the factory.

But once they returned, Takeo military police called them in for questioning, Samoeun said.

“We joined the training to gain experience and [to learn] to teach other workers to understand sexual harassment and gender,” he said.

Nget Rem, secretary for another union at Shoe Premier II, the Free Trade Union, said she had not even attended the Phnom Penh training hosted by the Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center but was summoned for questioning anyway.

Military police questioned her about what demands they had at the factory, whether there were previous labor disputes there, and if any NGOs were behind their union. Officers reminded her that the military police would stop them from holding any illegal protests at Shoe Premier II, Rem said.

“They said we just do whatever we want, but if there is any issue, who is going to take responsibility? They said this in a manner like they don’t want us to protest in this factory. They wanted it to mean that,” she said.

Takeo military police commander La Lai could not be reached for comment, but the unit issued a statement acknowledging that the force had called in representatives from three unions at Shoe Premier II: the Workers’ Movement Union, Free Trade Union and Cambodian Hope Workers’ Union.

Pav Sina, president of Collective Union of Movement of Workers, said the questioning was a threat and serious intimidation against the registered unionists.

An association that informs tuk-tuk drivers of labor rights says local officials won’t allow it to put up its logo outside a Poipet branch office.

Prom Bunthorn, president of the Cambodia Development People Life Association, said he had submitted letters to Banteay Meanchey provincial police and Poipet city administration on Monday, but the city authorities said the association would not be allowed without another letter from the property owner.

The group trains informal workers such as tuk-tuk drivers on labor rights in Poipet and Siem Reap, informs rural residents about their human rights, and conducts agricultural training with other NGOs, Bunthorn said.

The Phnom Penh-headquartered association is registered with the Interior Ministry and has offices in Kampong Speu, Kandal, Takeo and Siem Reap, and should only need to inform authorities about signage rather than seek permission, he said.

“I think the fact that local authorities require more complicated procedures is a kind of restriction against the freedoms of civil society, especially for my association in serving members in Poipet city,” Bunthorn said on Thursday.

Poipet city governor Keat Hul said he had not received any information about the incident, and did not see why there should be any problem putting up the association’s logo.

“I don’t know about this case, but generally, if he has proper legal standing, there’s nothing to ban,” Hul said. “Firstly, he has proper legal standing. Secondly, he is putting up a logo on his private land. So there’s nothing to ban.”

Human rights group Licadho’s spokesperson Am Sam Ath said denying a registered association from putting up signs would be unacceptable.

NagaWorld union leader Chhim Sithar was questioned at the Phnom Penh International Airport today and has been sent to prison, with a police official saying she violated her bail conditions.

Phnom Penh Police spokesperson San Sokseyha said the immigration police had arrested Sithar at the airport because the Phnom Penh Municipal Court issued an arrest warrant for the union leader.

He said this was because she had traveled overseas, which was against her bail conditions. He added that she had been taken to court.

“This morning the Phnom Penh police cooperated with [immigration at] the airport because of an arrest warrant of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court for failure to comply with the court decision on March 14, 2022,” he said, referring to the day Sithar was released on bail.

“Sithar doesn’t have a right to leave Cambodia unless the court decides for her.”

Sithar and 10 others are on bail, but it was unclear whether they were prevented from traveling overseas, and whether there were restrictions on reasons she could leave the country.

Licadho, which represents some of the charged NagaWorld workers, said Sithar had been moved to Prey Sar prison this afternoon.

The rights group added that Sithar’s lawyers were not aware or informed of “any judicial supervision or probation conditions, such as travel restrictions.”

According to information from labor rights group Central, the union leader was returning from a labor conference in Australia when immigration officers at the international airport scanned her passport and then escorted her away for questioning.

Central added that Sithar was arrested at around 10 a.m. Saturday morning and that rights groups and her lawyers have not been able to reach the prominent union leader since.

Sithar was violently arrested near the National Assembly in January and jailed with at least 10 other union colleagues earlier this year. They were released in March after signing letters requesting the Labor ministry for bail and agreeing to suspend the strike to enable negotiations.

The union went on strike last December after NagaCorp terminated more than 1,300 workers. The nearly yearlong protest started off strong but has since withered down to less than 200 protesters, who have attempted to continue their protest on a weekly basis in the face of violence from the police.

Media advocacy organizations decried officials’ unexplained decision to ban reporters from news outlets VOD and VOA from Prime Minister Hun Sen’s press conference following the Asean Summit on Sunday.

After four days of diplomatic meetings during the Asean Summit at Sokha Hotel — with media access limited or thwarted by technical errors — Hun Sen invited foreign and local reporters to the Peace Palace for a two-hour press conference to ask questions about the summit and Cambodia’s Asean chairmanship.

Reporters from Phnom Penh-based news outlets VOD and VOA registered with Information Ministry officials for passes to attend on Sunday. Two hours before the speech’s scheduled start, they were told that a “supervisor” would not allow access to reporters from the two outlets, according to a statement from three media advocacy organizations, including VOD’s parent organization, the Cambodian Center for Independent Media.

“We call on the ministry to explain this apparent discrimination against journalists for certain news outlets. However, we see no justifiable reason for denying any professional journalists the opportunity to openly access public officials and institutions, and report news in the public interest,” the statement said.

The reporters from VOD and VOA have been issued Information Ministry press cards — a condition also required for attending the Asean Summit.

Information Ministry spokesperson Meas Sophoan on Monday referred questions to the ministry’s general director Phos Sovann.

When asked by VOD why a reporter was banned on Sunday, Sovann responded he “wasn’t sure about this procedure.” He could not be reached on Monday.

However, Sovann defended the ban to the pro-government news outlet Khmer Times, saying that reporters from the two news outlets never attend these press conferences, and when they do they “cut only a few points” from a speech to publish.

Reporters are regularly blocked from covering speeches, said Sun Narin, a reporter for the U.S. government-funded news outlet VOA who was not allowed into Hun Sen’s speech. However, this time the event was on the international stage.

“We see that type of discrimination still happening, especially for journalists who dare to speak about social issues, which isn’t a good image for the country [that says it has] open access and freedom of information,” he said.

Pa Sokheng, a reporter for VOD Khmer who covered the entire Asean Summit, said she was disappointed to be banned from Hun Sen’s press conference, adding that this violates Cambodia’s constitutional protection of freedom of information and expression.

“Journalists aren’t an enemy to the government, and democracy requires transparency to reflect on issues and solutions,” she said. “[The government] also answers to the people through the press.”

CCIM’s media director Ith Sothoeuth noted that this ban on VOD and VOA appears to be an act of discrimination against independent media, and diminishes Cambodian citizens’ right to receive information.

“Freedom of information is a fundamental freedom that is guaranteed by the Press Law and the Cambodian Constitution. [This act] also undermines the right of the general public to access independent information,” he said.

Activists this week sought the attention of world leaders attending the Asean summit in Phnom Penh, while authorities on Saturday surrounded the home of a protester who has long campaigned for the release of her husband and other jailed opposition members.

As U.S. President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern arrived in Phnom Penh to attend the Asean summit, some 20 uniformed officers and state security guards were surveilling the home of Prum Chantha, a leader of the Friday Women of Cambodia group, which has for months petitioned foreign embassies for support.

“They come to monitor me because they are afraid I will lead a protest during the arrival of President Joe Biden,” Chantha said.

Her husband Kak Komphear, a former commune councilor in Phnom Penh, was arrested in 2020 and sentenced to six years in prison on incitement and plotting charges in relation to his support for the outlawed opposition CNRP.

Uniformed district security guards were gathered 5 meters from her house in Meanchey district’s Boeng Tompun II commune beginning at 6 a.m., Chantha said. By about 5:30 p.m. several officers were still lingering outside her home, and one told her they would be there until Sunday morning.

“However, I have no plan to protest because I have been protesting for one year and [the U.S. government] already knows our issue,” she said. “Forces are only gathered at my house because I am a group leader.”

Chantha, who stayed home all day, said the surveillance restricted activists’ rights and freedom of movement.

“They are afraid our protesting will lead to a bad country image during the Asean summit,” she said.

Phin Phal, Boeng Tompun II commune police chief, acknowledged that some police and state security guards were deployed to prevent activists from disturbing public order during the summit.

“It does not matter that we have deployed to ensure security because we are afraid they will go anywhere [to protest],” he said. “I just follow the instructions of my superiors.”

Phnom Penh municipal police spokesperson San Sokseyha said during the Asean summit, authorities were focused on ensuring the safety of visiting world leaders — as well as Cambodia’s public image.

“We have focused on the security, safety and the reputation of our country,” he said, before declining to comment further.

Phnom Penh police chief Sar Thet could not be reached.

Am Sam Ath, operations director at human rights group Licadho, said his organization was monitoring police officials’ surveillance of activists, noting that it violated people’s rights and freedom of movement.

Authorities’ claims that their monitoring of activists was to ensure public order was “unreasonable,” Sam Ath said.

Mu Sochua, vice president of the dissolved opposition CNRP, posted photos of uniformed authorities outside Chantha’s house, noting that the surveillance was occurring as Biden arrived in Phnom Penh.

Sochua, a dual Cambodian-American citizen, also said on Twitter that Biden should meet with Friday Women activists as well as striking NagaWorld unionists.

On Friday, strikers outside the NagaWorld casino carried large posters calling for the Malaysian Embassy in Phnom Penh to accept their petition, after the embassy early this year declined to receive it, and urging Asean nations not to trample on rights to freedom of association like the NagaWorld CEO, a Malaysian national.

“I wear traditional clothes and carry these banners to show other countries that come to the Asean summit to help intervene and find a solution for us,” said unionist Chan Sreyroth, who worked at the casino for four years before she was fired last year.

Union members have been protesting for their jobs back for nearly a year, alleging the company behind the only licensed casino in Phnom Penh had targeted unionists in mass layoffs.

Members of advocacy group Khmer Thavrak also sought the attention of visiting world leaders, including Biden, this week.

The group began a weeklong hunger strike on Monday to call for the release of Cambodian-American lawyer Seng Theary, who has been imprisoned for nearly five months, after being sentenced to six years in prison over her opposition activism.

Hun Vannak, a Khmer Thavrak member, told CamboJA he hopes news of the group’s campaign will reach Biden and the U.S. will raise the issue of human rights during the summit.

“After a statement from the U.S. State Department [mentioning concern over Theary’s conviction], we are increasingly hopeful that President Joe Biden will discuss human rights issues related to Seng Theary and other political prisoners with [Prime Minister] Hun Sen,” Vannak said.

Their hunger strike this week was made more difficult by authorities monitoring them while they campaigned at Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park, he said. One Khmer Thavrak member was hospitalized, while another experienced stomach illness.

Vannak said he did not expect their campaign to have immediate results, but the action could raise awareness among the public and leaders from the U.S. and Asean nations.

“We do not expect the government to provide us with a solution any time soon, but what we are doing now is expected to have a positive impact in our society,” he said.

In a letter addressed to Biden and dated Wednesday, opposition Candlelight Party president Teav Vannol appealed to the U.S. president to urge the Cambodian government to “stop all kinds of political persecutions, harassments, [and] intimidations,” release “prisoners of conscience without conditions” and “revive democracy” ahead of next year’s national elections.

Thach Setha, Candlelight’s vice president, told CamboJA that party leaders had no plans to meet Biden during his visit to Cambodia, but said the U.S. should leverage its position as a world power and signatory of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement to “uphold democracy.”

“I hope that after the Asean summit, there will be a change in the situation in our Cambodia,” Setha said.

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters prior to Biden’s arrival on Saturday that the U.S. president was “engaging” with Hun Sen because the prime minister is the host of the Asean summit, just as Biden was meeting with the presidents of Egypt and Indonesia at summits in those countries, before and after his visit to Cambodia.

“He’s going to engage across the board in service of America’s interests and to advance America’s strategic position and our values,” the adviser said.

Sullivan said Biden will discuss with Asean leaders the “need for freedom of navigation,” a reference to the U.S. position on the South China Sea, “lawful, unimpeded commerce,” and coordination in imposing costs and raising pressure on the Myanmar junta.

Biden met with Hun Sen on Saturday afternoon and raised concerns about Ream Naval Base, underscoring the “importance of full transparency” regarding activities by the Chinese military at the base, according to a White House statement.

Both China and Cambodia have repeatedly denied U.S. claims of a secret deal between China and Cambodia that granted China’s military exclusive access to parts of the base.

Asean summit spokesperson Kung Phoak told reporters late Saturday that Cambodia had already answered questions about Ream many times.

“We never hide,” he said. “We already allowed the U.S. to visit the location.”

In June 2021, the U.S. military attaché visited Ream, but said the Cambodian military did not grant U.S. officials “full access” — a charge Cambodian officials denied.

Biden also urged Hun Sen to “reopen civic and political space” before the 2023 elections, and “called for the release of activists detained on politically motivated charges,” including Theary, the White House said.

Phoak said if political activists abuse the law, they must face consequences for their actions.

“When we talk about extending democratic space, and at the same time we allow political activists to do whatever they want, even if it is illegal, I don’t think this democracy will last forever,” he said.

“Democracy in Cambodia is moving step by step, which reflects the real situation of the country and we never go backwards. We push the democratic space more open,” he added.

During a summit speech in Phnom Penh on Saturday, the U.S. president called Asean the “heart” of his administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy, and said the U.S. was committed to Asean centrality and working with nations in the region to tackle threats against the climate, health security, the rule of law and a rule-based order, and address challenges in Myanmar and the South China Sea.

Earlier in his brief remarks, Biden mistakenly referred to Hun Sen as the prime minister of Colombia.

“I want to thank the prime minister of, from Colombia’s leadership, and as Asean chair, and for hosting all of us,” he said.

The Supreme Court on Friday upheld convictions against four human rights officials and an election body staffer — who previously worked at the same rights group — in a case related to a love scandal involving opposition leader Kem Sokha.

The five were arrested in 2016 when four Adhoc staffers, Ny Sokha, Nay Vanda, Yi Soksan and Lim Mony, assisted a woman who was accused of having a relationship with Kem Sokha. Ny Chakrya, who previously worked at Adhoc, was also involved in the case.

The five — who are known by the moniker “Adhoc 5” — were jailed and released in 2017. They were convicted in September 2018 for bribery. The woman received financial assistance from Adhoc when she approached the group because she had been summoned by the anti-terrorism police for questioning.

They were sentenced to five years in prison but had to serve suspended terms of 14 months. The Appeal Court then upheld the municipal court’s verdict in 2022.

The Supreme Court on Friday brought the case to conclusion by upholding the lower court’s verdict, with judge Nil Nonn rejecting an Appeal Court prosecutor’s demand that the five serve their entire sentences and by dismissing a motion from the defense to drop the charges.

Soeng Senkaruna, an Adhoc rights monitor, said all three levels of the judiciary could not find justice for the five defendants and said they had made a credible defense against the charges.

“It is a shame of the judicial system,” he said.

The case also ensnared Sokha and two other opposition officials who were charged for procuring prostitution for allegedly taking the woman to Bangkok, Thailand. Sokha spent months holed up at the Cambodia National Rescue Party headquarters and was convicted and pardoned in the case.

Siem Reap families set up camp on disputed land this week in protest of their former farms being used to resettle Angkor park evictees, but have left under threat from authorities, the residents said.

Authorities have this year asked around 10,000 families living within the Angkor Archaeological Park to relocate from the historical area, saying their presence could lead to the loss of Unesco world heritage status. Officials have warned residents that they would get no compensation if they didn’t agree to move.

One resettlement site designated for those families is Run Ta Ek, an area about 25 km northeast of Angkor Wat.

But last month, around 200 families near the resettlement site took issue with the plan, saying the state had taken the Run Ta Ek land away from them in 2005 without compensation. They had put up with the dispossession believing the land would be used by the state, but they could not accept their former farms simply being handed to other people, they have said.

Protester Sam Mom said the disputants had met with district officials and the Apsara Authority on Monday seeking compensation, but no agreement could be reached.

In response, about one member from each of the 200 families set up camp in Run Ta Ek that evening, Mom said.

Around 10 p.m., authorities arrived and threatened to remove them with force if they didn’t leave, he said.

“Last night we slept on our land at Run Ta Ek village, but village guards came and asked the people not to camp,” Mom said, referring to the resettlement site.

Another protester, Ran Ra, said the 200 families no longer had enough farmland. Officials were asking them for documents, including land titles, that they had never issued for them, he added.

Penh Pren, a village chief who participated in the protest, said compensation of $500-$700 per hectare had been promised in 2005, but the residents never received it.

“This is an injustice because I am the real landowner. They took my land and gave it to illegal Angkor residents. I am not happy,” Pren said.

Prasat Bakorng deputy district governor Nin Sovann denied that authorities made threats to the campers, saying they had only negotiated with them to remove their tents.

Officials would meet with the residents again on Friday to try to reach an agreement on the land, Sovann said.

A village chief in Siem Reap province has been fired after he joined a protest with around 210 families protesting the use of their former farms to resettle Angkor evictees.

Penh Pren, a village chief in Balaing commune in Prasat Bakorng district, told VOD Thursday that he was removed from his position after attempting to protest overnight at Run Ta Ek relocation site earlier this week. Run Ta Ek is located about 25 km north of the park and is one of the sites tagged for resettling around 4,000 people who are being forced out.

The village chief claimed that in 2005, the Apsara Authority — which oversees the park — had taken villagers’ farmland and promised them between $500 to 700$ in compensation per hectare. Now in 2022, villagers including him are still waiting for compensation and are outraged to see the same land promised to other people.

“I’ll tell you the truth. People were really disappointed after I was removed from my position, but for me, I’m not disappointed by those who removed me,” he said. “For the people, I am not scared, because they did nothing wrong, only those who encroach on people’s land and promised compensation for people.”

Sam Mom, a villager who joined the protest, said that Pren has always tried to protect the villagers in land disputes and that firing him was a threat to stop protesting the Apsara Authority’s decisions.

“He also has the land in the area. He tried to help people because people lost their land in Run Ta Ek and he wanted to help to get their farmland back,” Mom said.

Balaing commune chief Lem Nath said Pren was removed from the position for multiple “mistakes” dating back to when he assumed the role in 2019, accusing the village chief of taking people’s money and insulting monks and top leaders.

“He made a lot of mistakes in public service,” she said. “I received complaints from the villagers.”

After a Monday meeting with district officials about the conflict yielded no solution, one member each from about 200 families camped out at Run Ta Ek. Around 10 p.m. that night, they were ordered to leave or face removal by force.

Two NagaWorld unionists have been questioned in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court over breaking and entering, intentional damage and unlawful confinement — but they still don’t know what the casino company is accusing them of, they said.

Protesters Sok Sothavuth and Net Chakriya appeared at the court for questioning on Monday, Sothavuth in the morning and Chakriya in the afternoon, as around 40 casino protesters stood outside in support.

NagaWorld workers have protested since December over mass layoffs that they say targeted union members and leaders, facing arrest and violence over 10 months of labor action. What began as large rallies outside the Phnom Penh casino have mostly dwindled into small protests of fewer than 100 participants.

Sothavuth said she received her summons last week, and spent around 30 minutes during the morning being questioned by a prosecutor.

She was shown “evidence” of her crime from August 19 and 20: printed-out photographs showing her standing outside the NagaWorld casino building with other protesters.

“There are pictures, but nothing aside from us striking in front of Naga. It’s like a picture of us standing over there every day,” Sothavuth said.

She said the prosecutor had asked her whether she had committed each of the three charges of breaking and entering, intentional damage and illegal confinement on those days.

She had answered she did not, and was asked this repeatedly over half an hour, she said, adding that the court action would not dissuade her from continuing to protest.

“Even though I face this case, I will still keep coming until we can find a solution,” she said, referring to around 200 unionists who are seeking reinstatement from the mass layoffs. She was told she would need to wait to see if NagaCorp continues with its lawsuit, she said.

Ros Bunleng, a manager at NagaWorld, could not be reached on Monday. NagaCorp has not clarified what the court case is about.

Chakriya, who was questioned in the afternoon, said a court clerk and prosecutor questioned her in succession, but neither had presented any photos of her. They simply asked what happened on August 19, she said.

Chakriya said she had replied it was a normal protest: The strikers stood in front of NagaWorld with banners, then went home.

One more protester is set to be questioned tomorrow. At least seven in total have received summonses.

A third NagaWorld protester was questioned in court on Tuesday over alleged breaking and entering in a case that remains unclear.

Choub Sophorn said she was questioned during the afternoon at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, with a prosecutor showing her printouts of photographs of protesters outside the NagaWorld casino.

The prosecutor asked whether she had yelled at the company on August 19 and 20.

“I didn’t shout and yell. I only held a banner demanding a solution,” she said.

Workers have been protesting for 11 months following mass layoffs that they said targeted unionists.

At least seven workers have been summoned for questioning based on a complaint from NagaCorp alleging breaking and entering, intentional damage and illegal confinement. Two others were questioned on Monday, but said they were unable to get clarity on what they were accused of.

“They also asked when I want to stop striking,” Sophorn said.

Unionist Nop Tithboravy said another worker had received a summons for November 22. All of them asked for a delay on their initial summonses.

A small group of protesters camping out at Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park say they have been told they must leave and continue their hunger strike in support of a jailed opposition activist at home.

Khmer Thavrak, an activist group that has advocated for a range of social and nationalist causes, arrived at the park on Wednesday as part of a weeklong hunger strike calling for the release of Cambodian-American lawyer and activist Seng Chan Theary.

Chan Theary is imprisoned in Preah Vihear province, serving a six-year sentence for incitement and plotting following a mass trial against opposition activists that human rights experts have denounced as politically motivated.

Khmer Thavrak’s Hun Vannak said officers had told the group​ this morning that its protest was illegal due to the need to maintain “public order” during the Asean Summit, which is scheduled to bring world leaders including U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to Phnom Penh.

The officers told the activists that they should continue their hunger strike at home instead, Vannak said.

“We replied to them that we have two choices: one is that we request to stay here expressing our freedom — all five of us. Nothing will happen, we will just skip eating. But if they don’t agree, the other is that we would go to every embassy attending the meeting.”

The group is only drinking water, milk and Royal-D electrolytes, they said. One activist dropped out of the strike after three days.

Around 20 plainclothes officers sat nearby under a large tent. One told reporters that the activists couldn’t stay due to public order, but would not say what action authorities would take.

Russei Keo district governor Ek Khun Doeun declined to answer questions via phone, instead advising a reporter to invite the Khmer Thavrak activists to camp outside the VOD newsroom as they were “disturbing public order” at Freedom Park.

“If you are Khmer you should tell them that if they want to do a hunger strike they should go to VOD. It will be easy to do a livestream,” Khun Doeun said.

The Khmer Thavrak activists began their hunger strike in Preah Vihear on Monday, and plan to continue until the upcoming Monday.

Update 5:30 p.m.: One of the protesters, Chhoeun Daravy, said in a social media post Thursday afternoon that another of the five remaining hunger strikers was taken to hospital after fainting. “Her health couldn’t take the hunger strike for that many days. It gave her a headache and she couldn’t breathe,” Daravy wrote.

A small group of hunger strikers was down to only one activist — fasting at home — due to security concerns and exhaustion by the time their protest action ended along with the Asean Summit.

Members of activist group Khmer Thavrak, which has advocated for a range of nationalist and social issues, began the hunger strike on November 7 in support of jailed opposition member Seng Chan Theary.

Chan Theary was convicted of plotting and incitement alongside 30 others in an opposition mass trial in June, and sentenced to six years in prison. She is a Cambodian-American lawyer, and the U.S. White House named her in a statement on Saturday as American President Joe Biden visited the country for the Asean Summit. The statement called for “the release of activists detained on politically motivated charges.”

Khmer Thavrak’s Chhoeun Daravy was the last participant left when the hunger strike ended on Sunday.

The group began their action with six participants in Preah Vihear, but was down to five by the time they moved to Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park on Wednesday.

Two were taken to hospital in the coming days, and on Saturday two more left the strike.

Hun Vannak, who left on Saturday, said he was exhausted, and he had heard that police were looking for him and colleague Svay Samnang at Samnang’s house. Samnang also left on Saturday. Vannak said police were acting on purported allegations from two women he claimed he didn’t know. It was still unclear what the alleged crime was and why police did not come to the public protest at Freedom Park.

“At the end there was only Daravy. Our group got overtaxed one by one. I was exhausted too,” Vannak said.

Phnom Penh Municipal Police spokesperson San Sokseyha declined to answer questions.

Daravy added that once she was alone, she felt unsafe and continued the hunger strike at home — but authorities had still stood watch outside.

“It’s overly restrictive by authorities against people when we are exercising our fundamental freedoms. But it’s the threat we all face,” she said.

Rights group Licadho’s spokesperson Am Sam Ath agreed that surveillance at home was too much.

“Protecting public order is one thing, but monitoring them at home is too much of a threat and it’s intimidation. They shouldn’t do this. This is a suppression of the people,” Sam Ath said.

A seventh NagaWorld worker was summoned to court on Thursday in relation to a complaint filed by the casino corporation alleging a raft of crimes.

At least six NagaWorld workers have previously been summoned by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court for questioning after NagaWorld filed a complaint with the charges of breaking and entering, intentional damage and even illegal confinement. There has been no clarity on what the workers actually did.

Mam Sovathin, another laid-off NagaWorld worker, said she went to court on Thursday after receiving a summons dated October 22. She submitted a letter asking for a delay because she did not have a lawyer.

“The court didn’t say anything, just took my document for a delay,” she said.

Sovathin said another worker had been called by the police and informed to appear in court for questioning but had not received an official summons letter. She did not recollect the worker’s name.

NagaCorp laid off more than 1,300 workers last year, igniting protests which have often turned violent when district security guards and police have attempted to block them. After months of being stopped at barricades on Sothearos Blvd. — after which they would be bused around the city and dropped off on the outskirts — they have been allowed to resume their protest outside NagaWorld 1.

Seven garment workers had contracts terminated at Puma supplier Eastcrown Footwear Industries in Phnom Penh after they tried to form a union.

Factory management denied the workers’ removals were related to the union activity, but would not elaborate.

An Yousa said this week that she had been dismissed from Eastcrown after five months working there. She was among 10 workers who moved to start a union at the factory as she had experienced what she considered to be exploitation and violation of workers’ rights.

Workers were forced to work overtime, denied requests to take leave, and made to sit through meetings during break periods, Yousa said.

The factory tried to get the unionists to join the factory’s own company union instead, but when the workers declined, their contracts were terminated on October 11, she said.

“They dismissed us because we formed a union at the factory. The factory didn’t continue our contract. They said if we resigned from our union and joined their union they would continue our work contract.”

Duong Sokna, another of the removed unionists, said the factory’s company union never helped the workers.

“They discriminated against the union. I want a real union representing the workers, not a union representing the factory,” Sokna said, adding that the dismissed workers had lodged a complaint with the Labor Ministry.

The seven unionizing workers who lost their contracts are Yousa, Sokna, Eam Sambath, Duong Soknang, Matt Vy, Sarem Tharim and Suong Sarin. The three others who tried to union have not yet reached the end of their contract periods.

Eastcrown administrative director Hy Hong said the factory’s reason for laying off the workers was not because they had formed a union, but would not elaborate.

Labor Ministry spokesman Heng Sour said the ministry was looking into the issue.

Ry Sethyneth, president of the Independent Trade Union Confederation, said the case showed discrimination against union workers and violated labor rights.

“If the Ministry of Labor uses the mechanism of the Labor Inspectorate effectively and promotes the implementation of the law, then union discrimination will no longer exist,” Sethyneth said. He considered union-busting to be a human rights abuse, he said.

Eastcrown Footwear Industries has about 3,000 workers, according to the dismissed unionists, and U.S. bills of lading show it has supplied shipments to Puma North America.

Earlier this year, the Coalition of Cambodia Apparel Workers Democratic Union said about 1,400 union leaders and active members have been laid off in cases of alleged union-busting in the last five years.

Workers fired from a Puma supplier after trying to start a union say two more colleagues have had contracts terminated since the weekend, and don’t know about a visit or settlement as claimed by the German athletics brand.

After seven garment workers spoke of alleged union-busting at Phnom Penh’s Eastcrown Footwear Industries, Puma’s corporate communications head Robert-Jan Bartunek said on Friday that an agreement had already been reached and overtime violations were not found as alleged.

“When PUMA learned about this case, we immediately engaged with the factory management. As of today, the factory management and the concerned workers reached an agreement on a financial settlement,” Bartunek said. “We have had no indication of unvoluntary overtime work through our social audit, grievance mechanism and our factory visit last week.”

However, two of the previously terminated unionists said on Monday that they didn’t know of any Puma visit nor a financial settlement.

Duong Sokna, 20, treasurer for the newly-created union, said she knew of an upcoming meeting at the Labor Ministry on Tuesday. But she didn’t know of any visit by Puma representatives or the brand’s mediation in the dispute.

Furthermore, two more workers who had tried to help form the union, Duong Tola and Horn Srey Neang, had received termination letters: Srey Neang on Saturday and Tola on Monday. They would lose their jobs at the end of their contracts, Sokna said.

“The factory strongly discriminated against the union and they still discriminate, and, frankly, in relation to those who were involved with voting for the independent union, all will be fired.”

Another unionist, Suong Sarin, 24, said only one of the 10 founding union members still had a job. Initially, 16 had joined to form the union, but six had withdrawn in the face of threats, Sarin said.

All the unionists would go to the Labor Ministry on Tuesday — some to attend a mediated meeting, and others to file a complaint.

Sarin said he also didn’t know about any Puma visit or settlement reached.

“I will still continue to do the union work because there is a lot of pressure on the workers inside the factory,” Sarin said, including being pushed to work overtime, and meetings held before work or during breaks. “No matter what the result will be, I will try my best to help our Cambodian workers.”

Eastcrown administrative director Hy Hong said last week that the factory’s reason for laying off the workers was not because they had formed a union, but would not elaborate.

Bartunek, the Puma communications official, said on Friday that the brand had started working with Eastcrown in March this year.

Puma has “multiple channels for factory workers to raise any concern directly with our sustainability team,” he said, and the company had “zero tolerance for freedom of association breaches, and it may lead to the termination of the business relationship with the factory.”

“PUMA commits to the right to freedom of association, to organize or join unions and to collective bargaining,” Bartunek said.

A son of casino firm NagaCorp’s billionaire senior CEO has been accused by unionists of snatching and throwing to the ground a phone belonging to a striking employee of the company’s NagaWorld casino, with video also showing the identified executive lobbing a traffic cone at union protesters.

Chen Yiy Hwuan, an adult son of NagaCorp founder and senior CEO Chen Lip Keong, grabbed and chucked the phone belonging to striking NagaWorld worker Lex Choulay last Friday outside an entrance to the Phnom Penh casino, according to videos of the incident and four current and former NagaWorld employees, including Chhim Sithar, president of Labor Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees of NagaWorld (LRSU).

Choulay was using his phone to film fellow union members sitting on the street, blocking a black van from exiting the casino, when a man walks toward him and snatches Choulay’s phone, a video posted on Facebook by another LRSU member shows. In a second video included in the same post, the man, identified by unionists as Yiy Hwuan, hurls the phone to the pavement.

“The screen was broken at the front. He has no right to crack my phone,” said Choulay, who has worked as a cashier at NagaWorld, Phnom Penh’s only licensed casino, for five years. Choulay said he purchased the Samsung Galaxy S10 phone for $600.

After smashing the phone, the man identified as Yiy Hwuan is also seen on video tossing an orange traffic cone at strikers before a security guard leads him away. Choulay appears to pick up his phone and continues filming the scene, including directing his phone at the man who had thrown it. The man then gets into the van and leaves the scene after security guards forcibly lift and carry away several protesters.

Yiy Hwuan was appointed CEO of NagaCorp’s hotels on April 5, according to a Hong Kong Stock Exchange filing. Two of Yiy Hwuan’s brothers, Chen Yiy Fon and Chen Cherchi, were also appointed to NagaCorp CEO roles—operations CEO and finance and treasury CEO, respectively. Lip Keong shifted to the role of senior CEO.

“The four (4) of them shall work together as a team to lead and manage the Group to bring the Group to the next level of success,” the filing says.

A fourth son of Lip Keong, Chen Yepern, serves as a managing director in the CEO cabinet and heads NagaCorp’s environmental, social and governance activities, it says.

Yiy Hwuan, 42, is also employed as CEO of Nagacorp subsidiary, NagaFarm Limited, an agricultural company. He was paid a basic salary of $176,000 in 2021, the filing says.

Lip Keong, 74, established a family trust for his five sons for “purposes of succession planning,” according to another Hong Kong Stock Exchange filing from July. The NagaCorp head transferred nearly 70% of NagaCorp shares to the trust, making Lip Keong and his sons the controlling shareholders of the company.

“My boss’s son is the person who destroyed the striker’s phone,” said LRSU president Sithar, who like striker Choulay, said she recognized Yiy Hwuan from working at the casino for years.

“We also attended our boss’s birthday celebration where he introduced his kid to the staff,” she said.

Two other LRSU members said Yiy Hwuan was the man seen throwing the phone and traffic cone in the video. They recalled seeing and interacting with Yiy Hwuan over their years working in the casino.

“Most of the time I saw him come to drink coffee and observe the staff working. I am sure that he is the eldest son of our boss,” said Mam Sovathen, a union member who was present at the strike site on Friday.

Sovathen later posted videos of the incident on her personal Facebook account, where one video received more than 218,000 views as of Thursday morning.

NagaCorp did not respond to emailed requests for comment. A person who answered a call to a number listed for a NagaCorp spokesperson declined to comment on Wednesday. Asked about Yiy Hwuan, she said, “He is out of town.”

When a reporter called a phone number listed for Chen Yiy Hwuan, chairperson of Tikto Asia Co. Ltd., in the Commerce Ministry’s business registry, a man answered and acknowledged the number belonged to Tikto but declined to identify himself.

Asked if the man in the video throwing the phone was Yiy Hwuan, he said, “We can’t confirm or deny,” and declined to comment further.

NagaCorp’s code of conduct says: “Management must set an example concerning individual responsibility and integrity because, ultimately our actions are more important than mere words,” according to the firm’s website.

Casino employees involved in the incident could lodge a police complaint, said Phnom Penh City Hall spokesperson Met Measpheakdey.

“If the phone was broken and they have convincing evidence, they can sue—it is their right,” he said.

Choulay, the casino worker whose phone was damaged, said he is considering pressing charges against Yiy Hwuan but “we will discuss with our union first.”

LRSU president Sithar said the union was still deciding whether to take legal action on Choulay’s behalf.

“What we see, this is an act of hatred toward local workers, especially when the striker is demonstrating to protect their labor rights at the workplace,” she said.

LRSU has led NagaWorld casino employees in a strike since December 2021, following mass layoffs which they say targeted union leaders and did not properly compensate workers.

Last week, 17 unions and civil society organizations called on the company to reinstate laid-off workers, pay seniority benefits and comply with the labor law.

Union member Sovathen said she hoped the videos would prompt action.

“I hope the head of the government, especially Samdech Techo [Prime Minister Hun Sen], will not allow NagaWorld to violate the laws of our country, as we see the character of the son of our boss who despises Khmer workers,” she said. “If [Hun Sen] does not intervene, it is the saddest thing.”

“We simply seek justice and a return to work,” she added.

A land activist from Tbong Khmum province was allegedly beaten in Phnom Penh on Sunday while attending a seminar in the capital.

Hoeun Sineat is a land activist for the Sre Praing community in Tbong Khmum’s Dambe district. He was in the capital attending a seminar and went to buy some food with two other people when he was beaten by unidentified assailants in Chamkarmon district, Sineat said on Monday.

The activist said he saw three men riding on two motorcycles in Boeng Trabek commune and they attacked him, leaving him with a gash on his left cheek and other injuries to his head.

“When they rode close to me, they got off the motorbike and attacked and got on the motorbike and returned without saying anything,” he said.

Sineat said he did not know the assailants and did not have any disputes with people, and had filed a complaint with the Phsar Doeum Thkov commune on October 17.

So Samban, Phsar Doeum Thkov police chief, said he was unaware of the complaint but if Sineat had told officers about the incident then they will not ignore it.

There has been a spate of violence against at least 30 activists and opposition party members in the last five years. A Candlelight official was hit on the head with a knife near the party’s Pur Senchey office in July. A former CNRP youth activist was killed last year in Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changvar, with police officials saying the murder was a result of a personal dispute.

Theng Savoeun, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community, was the organizer of the workshop and said Sineat was an active advocate for the land rights of people in his community. Savoeun said a company had been given a concession on land used by the community.

“We don’t want to see any use of violence against people,” he added.

The latest NagaWorld protester to be summoned to court was active during rallies, beating a wooden drum as workers sang labor anthems.

Sang Sophal, who received her summons this week, turned up to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday morning to ask for a delay. However, she was supposed to appear on Tuesday morning, though she had only received the summons later that evening. So the court said they could not accept her request for a delay, but would contact her about the next step, according to Sophal.

Sophal is the last among six NagaWorld protesters known to have been summoned to court over three charges: breaking and entering, intentional damage, and confinement. The last charge can carry prison sentences of up to 10 years.

Protests against the Phnom Penh casino began last December in response to mass layoffs of more than 1,400 workers that targeted union leaders and activists, which the protesters allege amounts to union busting.

Sophal said she had been active during the long-running protests, speaking on loudspeakers and beating drums during rallies.

Like the other five who have been summoned, Sophal said she had no idea what NagaCorp was accusing her of. A company representative on Wednesday hung up on a reporter when asked about the case.

The accusation of confinement was especially puzzling, she said, pointing out how protesters had been repeatedly forced onto buses and taken away from the casino site to a quarantine center on the outskirts of the city.

“During these 10 months the company has treated us badly and detained us at the quarantine center at Prek Pnov without providing food or water,” she said. “Who detained whom?”

The protesters are set to return to the casino on Friday. Their near-daily rallies have reduced to only Fridays and weekends, though authorities are now allowing them to stand in front of the casino rather than block them with barricades or remove them on buses.

Sophal said she would continue to seek the reinstatement of around 200 people, including top union leaders, who rejected last year’s layoffs.

Authorities shoved and struck unionists with walkie-talkies as members of eight unions attempted to submit a petition against union-busting to the Labor Ministry and the Council of Ministers office.

Around 400 participants from eight unions and two civil society groups submitted a petition to the Labor Ministry and Council of Ministers on Sunday highlighting 31 cases of union-busting that occurred during the pandemic, particularly affecting garment unions and a casino workers’ union at NagaWorld casino.

The workers were blocked and faced violence from security personnel as they walked from the Labor Ministry to the Council of Ministers. Seak Panha, a member of the NagaWorld union, said at least two of their members lost consciousness and others were injured when authorities tried to stop the group.

Panha said they first attempted to submit the petition to the Labor Ministry but when no one from the ministry came to receive the letter they decided to walk to the Council of Ministers building.

Authorities met them at the intersection near the Institute of Technology of Cambodia and began shoving and hitting some members, she said.

“When we arrived under the [overpass] bridge, they came to stop us and hit us. They even hit us with walkie talkies. Two of our friends lost consciousness,” she said, saying they passed out while being shoved by the authorities.

A livestream from labor rights group Central showed unionists walking away from the melee with red marks on their faces.

NagaWorld workers have clashed with police and security guards as they have protested the firing of more than 1,300 workers by the casino corporation last year.

Phnom Penh Police spokesperson San Sokseyha denied any violent actions by the police and instead blamed the unionists for the violence.

“We never violate those illegal protestors who are always planning incitement, yelling and making inappropriate actions to the authorities, while the authorities try to stop them from clashing with each other,” he said.

The petition does not provide details of the 31 cases but lists federation members affected by union-busting, such as the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions, Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union and Independent Trade Union Federation. Unions have told VOD of union-busting tactics used during the pandemic.

Cambodia Tourism Workers’ Union Federation president Touch Kosal added one of his local unions has also seen its union leadership laid off.

“We have seen that the solutions [so far] aren’t enough. We want to see the Ministry of Labor take action for union leaders to get back to work,” he said. “The Ministry of Labor is our parent and has to compromise for the solution.”

Ou Tepphalin, president of the Cambodia Food and Service Workers Federation, said the unions had collected data on attempts to dissolve different unions and realized unions across industries were facing similar problems.

She wasn’t confident that the Labor Ministry would respond, but added that it’s important to raise the busting of unions with officials.

“At least we are trying to demand for our freedoms as a group of unions,” she said.

Labor Ministry spokesperson Heng Sour did not respond to a request for comment, and government spokesperson Phay Siphan said the Council of Ministers couldn’t address the issue of union-busting.

“If the Ministry of Labor couldn’t solve it, the union should file a complaint to the court. Because the court can make a judgment, and the Council of Ministers only does administrative procedures,” he said.

Authorities pressured and prevented dozens of members of communities embroiled in land conflicts from travelling to Phnom Penh this morning to join with more than 800 other land community members delivering petitions to government ministries.

Around 500 people from Koh Kong province and some 360 more from Kampong Speu province rallied in the capital to demand the government resolve longstanding land disputes and deliver land titles and/or fair compensation to communities left waiting for years. Representatives of six Koh Kong communities and three Kampong Speu communities delivered petitions to the ministries of justice, interior and land management as well as Prime Minister Hun Sen’s cabinet on Tuesday amid a heavy police presence.

En route to Phnom Penh, police stopped dozens of members of Kampong Speu’s Amleang Land Community and compelled community representatives to sign agreements not to cause “social insecurity” in Phnom Penh before allowing seven of their eight vehicles to continue, claiming some vans were overloaded with passengers.

Later, police in Kampong Chhnang province pressured and appeared to target dozens of Amleang community members by threatening to fine drivers under the traffic law unless community members turned around and went home. Only five of the seven remaining vehicles continued to Phnom Penh, after paying fines of 1.2 million riel (about US$300) per vehicle.

Police also arbitrarily stopped three vehicles carrying members of Raksmey Samaki Land Community, and asked for drivers’ identification and other documents. Only one of the vehicles were allowed to continue to the capital. Authorities stopped another 12 vehicles with members of Trapeang Chour Land Community, but allowed all of them to travel on to Phnom Penh.

The three Kampong Speu communities have land conflicts dating as far back as 2010 with Phnom Penh Sugar Company, owned by okhna Ly Yong Phat. The Koh Kong communities also have land disputes with companies owned by Ly Long Phat and okhna Heng Huy.

A journalist in Preah Vihear province says he was beaten up by an army commander after he accidentally witnessed what he suspected to be the illegal transportation of timber.

Sou Senghak, 60, a journalist at Samarakot News, told CamboJA he was attending a friend’s party opposite the Battalion 394 barracks in Choam Ksan district on Sunday night when he happened to see a tractor transporting about 2 cubic meters of wood.

Lieutenant Colonel Yoeung Se, the battalion’s commander, was on the tractor accompanied by a timber broker, according to Senghak.

Senghak said he was about to call out to the tractor to stop, so that he could investigate what was going on, but before he could do so the commander jumped off the tractor and hit him, as well as his wife who’d gone with him to the party.

“They stopped, (Lieutenant Colonel) Se jumped off and beat me and my wife,” Senghak said, adding that his nose was bleeding.

Senghak said he immediately filed a complaint with the gendarmerie, but the commander phoned him today asking that they settle the matter out of court.

“They called me to mediate, but I found it very difficult to accept because he hit me so hard,” he said.

He told CamboJA that he thinks there has been wood stored at that barracks for some time, though it’s unclear who it belongs to. He says he’s been barred from entering the barracks even when he’s needed to go there to report on unrelated stories.

“I do not know who owns the timber. We just know there is wood there, but we cannot enter this place,” he said.

Illegal logging and timber transportation is rife in the area, he said, adding that most of it is from the Preah Roka forest and no action has been taken to prevent the criminal activity.

Si Vuthea, editor-in-chief of Samarakot News, said his reporter had called the military police in Choam Ksan District shortly after the incident, at around 10 PM on Sunday night, and a military police officer told him to file a complaint.

However, on Monday evening, August 22, both parties agreed to end the lawsuit, he said. The newspaper also agreed to remove an article published this morning about the incident.

Vuthea said the commander had explained his behavior by saying he had mistaken Senghak for another journalist accused of extortion, which is why he attacked him.

“He (Mr. Se) heard that a journalist had extorted money from a wild boar seller, and he thought that it was Mr. Senghak. So when he saw Mr. Senghak, he beat him,” Vuthea said.

Contacted for comment, Lieutenant Colonel Se, declined to comment.

Him Khortieth, research and advocacy manager at CamboJA, said that journalists should not be victims of violence.

“The assault of journalists reporting on issues in the public interest is a gross violation of press freedom. All journalists must be able to carry out their work safely and securely. I condemn this violence against Mr. Sou Senghak and call on authorities to bring the perpetrator to justice,” he said.

The Phnom Penh Appeal Court this afternoon upheld incitement convictions of 10 political and social activists, leaving most under court probation until late 2023.

The court denied appeals from Chhoeun Daravy, Hun Vannak, Tha Lavy and Eng Malai from social justice group Khmer Thavrak; Koet Saray, Moung Sopheak and Mean Prommony from Khmer Student Intelligent League Association; and Kong Sam An, Chhour Pheng and Chum Puthy, former members of the dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court had sentenced the 10 activists to 20 months in prison, with five to six months suspended, and fined them 2 million riel each (US$500) on charges of incitement in October 2021.

Daravy and Vannak, of Khmer Thavrak, and ex-CNRP members Pheng and Puthy were each sentenced to serve 15 months in prison, while Sam An, Saray, Sopheak, Prummony, Lavy and Malai were sentenced to serve 14 months. They were arrested in August and September 2020 for peacefully gathering around the court to call for the release of then-jailed unionist Rong Chhun.

Nine of the activists were released from prison in November 2021. They were placed on probation for two years, requiring them to alert the court if they move, change jobs or want to leave the country, among other conditions.

Sam An, who was sentenced to seven years in prison on treason charges in a separate case, has been jailed since September 2020.

Daravy and Vannak were among four Khmer Thavrak activists who were detained last week by officers from the prime minister's bodyguard unit in Phnom Tamao forest.

Police in Cambodia’s Takeo province on Tuesday released a group of young environmental activists and journalists after they were allegedly violently detained earlier in the day by bodyguards of Prime Minister Hun Sen as they tried to inspect an area of a protected forest where trees had been cleared.

The Phnom Tamao forest, located roughly 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Phnom Penh, is home to many rare and endangered species, and is the only forested eco-destination anywhere near the capital. It encompasses an area of more than 6,000 acres (2,450 hectares) and is home to the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center, established in 1995.

In April, media reported that the government had agreed to sell more than 1,200 acres (500 hectares) of the protected forest to Leng Navatra, a real estate company, and two other businesses said to be close to Hun Sen’s family. Later reports suggested the entire area had been earmarked by the government for development, excluding the 1,000 acres (400 hectares) that contain the wildlife center.

In a rare move this month, Hun Sen ordered an end to the clearance of the Tamao forest adjacent to the country’s largest zoo, following multiple appeals by environmental groups and members of the public.

The group of activists who were released on Tuesday said Hun Sen’s bodyguards assaulted them after they tried to inspect the area and ask local residents to sign petitions seeking clarification from local authorities regarding a fenced off 600 hectare (1482 acre) plot of cleared land that the prime minister had ordered to be replanted.

The bodyguards claimed that the activists and journalists were trespassing. They said they steered clear of off-limits areas and were on the way to a pagoda from which they could view the clearing.

Hun Vannak, one of the activists, told RFA’s Khmer Service that the bodyguards kicked him and hit him in the face. He said that a group of about 10 bodyguards forced the group into cars and took them to a nearby military camp. He said they were not told why they were being detained.

"We didn't dare to say anything because they took us to their camp,” Vannak said. “No one could help us. I felt we were with wild people, they didn't consider the law, they used only violence. They detained and assaulted us arbitrarily."

Also among the group was Hy Chhay, a journalist for the local independent news outlet VOD who, according to Vannak, was slapped in the face by the bodyguards.

The group was transferred to a police facility in Takeo’s Bati district after which they were released.

RFA was unable to reach Bati district Police Chief Chhay Keomoni for comment on Tuesday.

The bodyguards violated the constitutional rights of the activists and journalists, Nop Vy, director of the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association, told RFA.

"I have observed that [authorities] respect only their orders, [not the law],” Nop Vy said. “It is wrong. Restrictions on the youths and journalists are contrary to Hun Sen's decision to replant the trees.”

The violence against the group must be investigated, according to Soeung Sengkaruna, spokesman for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, a local

rights group.

“This is a serious human rights violation,” he said.

The activists told RFA they plan to file a complaint against the bodyguards.

A prominent union leader has been warned for allegedly forcing NagaWorld casino workers to continue their protests, with the Labor Ministry letter threatening “punishment” if she continued her “illegal activities.”

NagaWorld workers have been protesting since December 2021 after more than 1,300 workers were laid off by the casino corporation, of which only around 200 are continuing their collective action to push for reinstatement.

In recent weeks prominent union leaders have lent their support to NagaWorld workers, and routinely monitored the protests. Yang Sophorn, the head of garment worker union CATU, has even suggested she will get garment workers to join the protests.

The Labor Ministry letter warned Sophorn on Thursday to stop acting beyond the purview of her profession and to stop forcing the workers to continue their strikes. It does not provide any details about how Sophorn was allegedly doing this.

The letter points to three articles in the controversial Law on Trade Unions. The letter cites Article 81 for working beyond the “geographical, occupational and sectoral scope” and includes an around $1,250 fine.

Article 89 deals with “coercion to strike” and carries a $1,250 fine, and Article 65 for unfair labor practices by a union.

The Labor Ministry did not detail what kind of “punishment” they would initiate against Sophorn and demanded she not engage with the NagaWorld protests anymore.

Sophorn was unfazed by the letter on Friday, and said she would continue her support for the fired casino workers.

“I feel normal. I have no problems [with] the ministry’s warning letter. I don’t know based on what case they are accusing me, I have not committed anything wrong,” Sophorn said.

She had the right to support other unions and their advocacy for labor rights, and was unsure how she had violated any laws.

Sophorn again was unable to give a date for when she and other unions planned to join the NagaWorld workers. The union leader has previously stated that she would get garment factory workers to protest in support of the NagaWorld strike, with other unions also pledging their support for the proposed event.

The workers have continued their strike this week, with Mam Sovathin, one of the protesting workers, saying only 90 people were present on Friday because many were sick after they were caught in heavy rains on Thursday.

She said the letter about Sophorn showed that authorities were now accusing everyone of illegal acts. She added that workers took responsibility for their collective actions and were not being coerced by anyone.

“We so regret that as a worker, we are trying to find a solution from the Labor Ministry but they have no ability. Instead, they try to accuse others; it’s so regretful,” Sovathin said.

Labor Ministry spokesperson Heng Sour said the warning would continue if the violations did not end.

“If the violation continues intentionally, the Labor Disputes Department will take the individual to court,” Sour said.

“The Department of Labor Disputes hopes that the letter of warning or reminder will enable stakeholders to reconsider the law. Sometimes as human beings we can forget or not pay attention. That is why the department issued a warning letter or reminder to her. When she receives the letter, she will read the relevant article again and be able to understand and adjust her actions. Ministries or professional officials do not want to see any stakeholders getting punished unknowingly by acting illegally or improperly.”