Cambodia’s Restrictive Law Undermines Public Protest Rights

• Cambodia's 2009 Law on Peaceful Demonstration, designed to protect public assembly, is being used to curtail the right to protest.
• Authorities frequently restrict the use of designated "freedom parks" and impose bureaucratic hurdles on organizers.
• Human rights organizations are calling for a formal review of the law ahead of the 2027 and 2028 elections.

Legal Hurdles and Ambiguity

• The law requires organizers to provide precise participant numbers in advance, making protests susceptible to being declared illegal if estimates are inaccurate.
• There is no legal recognition or protection for "spontaneous" assemblies, which occur in response to immediate events and cannot be planned in advance.

The "Freedom Park" Strategy

• While the law mandates freedom parks in every province, only one has been officially identified since 2009.
• Relocation tactics often move these parks to isolated industrial areas far from city centers, nullifying the impact of demonstrations.
• Government authorities frequently block access to the Phnom Penh Freedom Park using security and public order pretexts, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Suppression Tactics

• Authorities often limit protest participants to a handful of people and restrict activities to submitting petitions rather than holding public demonstrations.
• Consultations between government officials and civil society organizations (CSOs) are often one-sided, with officials providing little time for dialogue or negotiation.
• The cumulative effect of these restrictions risks reducing the democratic process to mere voting, limiting the agency of citizens to participate in public life.