Thailand repatriated the activists a day after detaining them. Once back in Cambodia, they were imprisoned in three different facilities. Human Rights Watch slammed the operation, lamenting that authoritarian governments in Southeast Asia routinely expel political prisoners to their country of origin. Next year, Thailand will have a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.
A few days after the US approved the transfer of these weapons to Ukraine, the review conference of the Ottawa Convention, which regulates the ban on anti-personnel mines, got underway in Asia, the first time in this continent. Even after decades of demining and clearing land, Cambodia is still dealing with the serious consequences that mines have on civilian lives.
The Cambodian Environment Ministry announced a bid for the collection of forest by-products from clearing the site of the future Chinese-built Stung Tatai Leu dam. Koh Kong province has long been the victim of illegal logging activities and environmentalists fear that the government's announcement is but a sham.
The 36-year-old reporter who documented online scam centres in Sihanoukville was released on bail three weeks after his arrest in late September, following apologies to former Prime Minister Hun Sen and his son, current Prime Minister Hun Manet. Dara explained that detention and police threats have undermined his spirit.
On the sidelines of the synod sessions, the wheelchair made in Phnom Pen, representing universal dignity, was gifted to the Pontiff. Named after the longest river in Indochina, it improves the existence of people affected by mines and cluster bombs. Jesuit Enrique Figaredo, apostolic prefect of Battambang: it is a ‘sacrament’ because it changes the inner life of those who receive it.
Cambodia’s best-known independent journalist still active despite ongoing repression has been arrested. His posts on social media on environmental damage caused by stone quarries were probably the pretext used by the authorities to detain him on charges of causing “social disorder". Dara was also actively reporting on online scams by transnational crime syndicates employing people in slave-like conditions. He joins about a hundred political prisoners already in detention in Cambodia.
