Cambodia - May 2026

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