The government-controlled municipal court in Phnom Penh on September 2, 2026 sentenced three activists to seven years in prison for allegedly plotting against the government. They were 25-year-old student leader Thy Thorn and two political opposition activists, Soeung Kunthea and Mean Chanthon. Kunthea and Chanthon were arrested in Thailand in November 2024 and summarily deported to Cambodia to face trial, despite being recognized as refugees by the United Nations refugee agency.
The long sentences on baseless charges are the latest abuse of the judicial system by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party in its efforts to silence critical voices in the country.
Thorn, Chanthon and Kunthea were among at least 94 people arrested by Cambodian authorities in 2024 amid a wave of criticisms of the Cambodia–Laos–Vietnam Development Triangle Area (CLV), a controversial economic development plan among the three governments established in 2004. The Cambodian government later withdrew from the agreement after the public outcry.
Thorn was apparently arrested because of his position as a vice-president of the Khmer Student Intelligent League Association, a student group that is active in raising social and environmental issues. The government has repeatedly targeted the student association’s leadership in the past over their activism. The group’s president, Koet Saray, is currently serving a four-year prison sentence on incitement charges. In February, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined that Saray’s detention was arbitrary and in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Cambodia ratified in 1992.
The Cambodian People’s Party pressured many of those arrested for criticizing the CLV development plan to confess and join the ruling party in exchange for their release. These confessions were then used to discredit critics and activists as part of the Cambodian government’s systematic campaign to undermine the political standing of opposition groups. Those unwilling to confess are now being punished with lengthy prison sentences.
Cambodian authorities should immediately release Thorn, Kunthea and Chanthon, and quash their convictions. Governments, especially those attending the Francophonie Summit in Phnom Penh in November, should use their influence to pressure the Cambodian government to release all political prisoners and end its repression of peaceful critics.
