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English By Sun Narin Share on Facebook Print this page PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA - Last summer, prominent Cambodian activist monk Bor Bet participated in protests triggered by the arrest of labor leader Rong Chhun. Now the monk has fled to Thailand with other Cambodian dissidents, vowing to return home.
Like many Cambodian Buddhist monks, Bor Bet has embraced activism, working with a loose coalition of movements bedeviling the increasingly authoritarian government of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Advocates for democracy, labor unions, human rights and the environment, they participate in each other’s demonstrations.
When authorities arrested Rong Chhun, a veteran human rights defender, July 31 and charged him with “incitement to cause social unrest,” he was pursuing the case of farmers in Tbong Khmum, a province on the Vietnam border, whose land had been seized as part of the official demarcation of the border, long a