Chhim Sithar was found guilty of ‘sedition’ over strikes that began in 2021 when NagaWorld laid off more than 1,300 staff.
A Cambodian court has jailed a prominent trade union leader for two years after finding her and other union members guilty of “sedition” over a strike at the country’s only casino, in a decision condemned by human rights groups and trade unionists.
A court in Phnom Penh on Thursday found Chhim Sithar, leader of the Labor Rights Supported Union (LRSU) of NagaWorld’s Khmer workers, and eight other current or former union members guilty of “inciting to commit a crime or disrupting the social Security”.
Sithar, who was arrested during a protest at the Nagaworld casino complex in January 2022, was taken to jail while the other defendants received suspended sentences or conditions of judicial supervision.
“The convictions of Chhim Sithar and the others are a blatant attack on unions and workers fighting for their fundamental rights,” Montse Ferrer, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for research, said in a statement. “This verdict is a reminder that the Cambodian government would rather side with corporations than protect the rights of its people.”
The long-running dispute at NagaWorld, which is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, began after company management announced in April 2021 that they would lay off more than 1,300 workers, about half of them union members.
“From the very beginning of the casino workers’ strike, the Cambodian government has sided with NagaWorld management to prosecute Chhim Sithar and the union leaders and crush the strike,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of respecting workers’ rights to freedom of association, collective bargaining and strikes, the government has used every repressive ploy in the book to intimidate their union.”
The NagaWorld dispute has unfolded amid a renewed crackdown on any opposition to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s rule.
The main opposition party was forcibly dissolved ahead of the last election in 2018, with leader Kem Sokha being tried for treason.
Kem Sokha was found guilty in March and sentenced to 27 years in prison.
On Thursday, the opposition was again barred from taking part in elections scheduled for July after a court rejected its appeal against the election commission’s decision to disqualify it from the trial.
Violent arrest
Authorities initially charged Sithar with “sedition” on January 3, 2022, and the following day, plainclothes security officials forcibly arrested her as she attempted to join the ongoing strike action – grabbing her around the neck and dragging her into a car.
After more than two months in detention, she was released on bail in March, but arrested again in November 2022 after returning to Cambodia from the World Congress of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in Melbourne, and charged with breaching bail conditions on an international trip.
Neither she nor her lawyer had been informed of the travel restrictions and she had traveled to Thailand in September and October without consequences.
Michele O’Neil, the president of the Australian Confederation of Trade Unions, condemned the verdict against Sithar and her fellow union members.
“This is a clear case of the Cambodian government conducting an anti-union campaign against Chhim Sithar and her union,” O’Neil said in a statement, urging the Cambodian government to release her immediately.