A legal brief on Cambodia’s Covid-19 Law used to persecute human rights defenders and other activists

Concerns about the Covid-19 Law were quickly realised when it was immediately used to authorise sweeping restrictions, including repressive lockdowns and the arrests of journalists and other public critics of the government’s Covid-19 response. Employed measures created disproportionate and unnecessary restrictions on the rights to freedom of movement, peaceful assembly, association, and expression. The UN Secretary-General’s 2021 report to the UN Human Rights Council stated that at least 729 people were arrested under the Covid-19 Law between mid-April and the end of May 2021, and more than 100 were detained, figures the Cambodian government disputes. In later months, as case numbers began to decline, the law was strategically used against land rights demonstrators and labour rights activists, among other human rights defenders.