Cambodia frees detained casino workers amid UN, US concerns
Phnom Penh faced pressure overusing COVID-19 restrictions as a pretext to break the strike.
Authorities in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh on Wednesday released around 200 workers detained a day earlier for “violating COVID-19 protocols” while demanding a resolution to their long-standing labor dispute, which had prompted condemnation from both the U.N. and Washington.
NagaWorld Casino workers said that police carried out a “violent crackdown” on their strike Tuesday and ferried them against their will to several quarantine facilities, allegedly to be tested for the disease caused by the coronavirus. However, authorities released them on Wednesday after they refused to submit to the tests without an official order.
Chhin Ouksaphea, a worker who was quarantined in a center on the outskirts of the city, said she and her fellow strikers were told “to walk home” upon their release and were denied medical attention despite being roughed up by police the day before.
But she expressed hope that the government would help to resolve the dispute following an inter-ministerial meeting held later Wednesday to address the matter.
Thousands of NagaWorld workers walked off their jobs in mid-December, demanding higher wages and the reinstatement of 11 jailed union leaders and workers and 365 others they say were unjustly fired from the hotel and casino, which is owned by a Hong Kong-based company believed to have connections to family members of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Cambodian authorities have called the strike “illegal” and alleged that it is supported by foreign donors as a plot to topple the government. But a series of mass arrests in recent weeks have been attributed to alleged violations of pandemic health regulations in Cambodia’s capital. Activists said the charges were trumped up to break up the strike.
Details of Wednesday’s inter-ministerial meeting – presided over by Cambodian Minister of Interior Sar Kheng and expected to include ministers of the health, labor, and justice departments and the heads of the Phnom Penh city government, municipal court, and the national police – was not made public and attempts to contact Phnom Penh City Hall spokesman Met Meas Pheakdey went unanswered.
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