"The price of protest: With husbands locked up, families of alleged activists drown in debt", 11 January 2021

Armed with a giant photograph of her jailed husband, Dos Kimteang went to the U.S. Embassy … knowing that the day’s protest could be her last.

The outings have become regular since her husband was sent to prison … on incitement charges for allegedly organizing protests against the jailing of popular union leader Rong Chhun, …

“With his imprisonment, all his projects have been suspended and there is no income,” she said, referring to the family’s interior decoration business.

“I already sold our car because I didn’t have money to pay back the banks – next I will have to sell the house,” Kimteang, 40, told ...

A group of wives of men held in pre-trial detention have become known as the ‘Friday Women’ for their weekly protests, which have been mostly peaceful until the arrival of authorities, who have been accused of using excessive force to shut them down…

The protesters themselves have petitioned foreign embassies in Phnom Penh and the United Nations Office High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) calling for intervention.

…, the OHCHR made public a letter sent to Cambodia’s foreign minister “concerning the arrest detention, intimidation, surveillance, threats and excessive use of force against Cambodian human rights defenders in relation to peaceful demonstrations against the detention of fellow human rights defenders and activists.”

The letter, …, also addresses “the criminalization of the means by which human rights defenders carry out their work, inhibiting their ability to report on and advocate against human rights violations in Cambodia,” …