Former opposition leader Kem Sokha received a royal pardon in May 2026 for his 2023 treason conviction only weeks after that conviction was upheld by the Phnom Penh Appeals Court. Sokha had been sentenced to 27 years of house arrest and barred from political activity after being found guilty of conspiring with foreign powers. A five-year ban on political participation and from traveling abroad remains in place. The royal pardon was signed not by King Norodom Sihamoni, who is in China undergoing medical treatment, but by the acting head of state, former prime minister and current Senate President Hun Sen. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights welcomed the pardon while urging authorities to quash Sokha’s conviction entirely and overturn the sentences of other opposition politicians and activists it considers arbitrarily prosecuted.

Sources: British Broadcasting Corporation, Camboja News

The Ministry of Information updated press accreditation rules for 2026 to require a ‘letter of good conduct’ from local authorities and that applicants not currently face any legal actions or formal complaints. The stricter procedures were accompanied by new regulations for the journalism industry as a whole. Press freedom advocates decried the moves as likely to make reporting more dangerous and increasing direct government control of media. Formal registration has become necessary in recent years, as officials increasingly will not speak to unaccredited reporters and rural security forces, and routinely harass those without official documents. Press freedom advocates also stressed that the requirement to keep a clean criminal record is challenging in a country where strategic lawsuits against public participation—frivolous complaints and legal actions—are routinely filed to dissuade journalists from reporting on powerful interests.

Sources: Camboja News, IFEX

American, British and Singaporean prosecutors have brought charges against and seized hundreds of millions of dollars of assets belonging to the Prince Group, a Cambodian group of companies alleged to be the primary operator in the country’s multibillion dollar cybercrime and online scam industry. It is the first major legal action against the scam centre industry, which is believed to enjoy high-level state protection in Cambodia. The United Nations and experts estimate the industry’s annual turnover is equivalent to 40 to 60 per cent of Cambodia’s GDP and has a workforce of up to 200,000, many or most of whom are foreign nationals labouring under threat of violence. A South Korean student died working in one of the scam centres in August 2025, leading the Korean government to declare parts of Cambodia off-limits to its citizens. Researchers have accused the Cambodian government—as well as high-ranking politicians in neighbouring countries—of being at least complicit and arguably actively involved in the scam industry. 

Sources: Deutsche Welle, Reuters, Amnesty International, CNN

Thailand’s unilateral closure of its border with Cambodia following the armed clashes between the two countries has led to the sudden repatriation of between 800,000 and 2 million expatriate Cambodian workers. The massive influx of newly unemployed workers has strained the country’s economy, both through the burden on the government of reintegrating them and through the loss of remittances. Development banks and researchers are concerned that unemployment and poverty will increase significantly and have downgraded the country’s growth outlook. Many of the returning workers were undocumented in Thailand and face additional challenges, such as unpaid wages and a lack of access to the Cambodian identity documents necessary to seek state aid and protection. 

Sources: Nikkei Asia, Channel News Asia, The Diplomat