Cambodia’s human rights record took another hit over the past year, with abuses spilling beyond its borders, Human Rights Watch said in its 2025 World Report launched in Asia today. The report and event panelists, spotlighted rising authoritarianism and transnational repression across the region.
The report launch at Bangkok’s Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand follows the recent killing of a Cambodian-French opposition leader just kilometers away in the Thai capital, and which contextualized the opening of the panel. Human rights defenders have called the murder a likely political assassination, while Thai authorities’ ongoing investigation has recently identified a suspected conspirator who was a former adviser of longtime Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Outside the cross-border killing, panelists outlined widespread human rights abuses in Cambodia detailed in the report. These include political intimidation, judicial overreach, press freedom restrictions, harassment and detention of activists, and the unchecked cyber scam industry, which has reportedly trafficked 100,000 people in Cambodia alone.
“The scam centers are one of the most pressing issues in the regional crisis,” said Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch (HRW).
“The spread of scam centers in Cambodia shows the need for a stronger regional response – not just targeting criminality, but also human trafficking,” she said. Lau pointed to recent sanctions on a Cambodian tycoon linked to the illicit industry and emphasized that pressure from the private sector are actions stakeholders can take to hold Phnom Penh accountable on its human rights record.
While the nearly 600-page world report documents many abuses, democratic backsliding and transnational repression stand out as the most concerning and growing trends in Cambodia and across Southeast Asia.
“There is a long history of transnational repression in this region involving government’s effectively trading dissidents in an effort to silence them,” said HRW Asia director Elaine Pearson. “But in the last year, things have deteriorated.”
After Hun Manet took over the premiership from his father Hun Sen in 2023, Cambodia’s ruling party tightened its grip, HRW said.
Since May 2024, authorities have arrested 11 opposition members, while activists and labor leaders received years-long prison terms. Nearly 100 were arrested in the summer of 2024 for criticizing a development plan with neighboring countries, with 59 still in custody.
A notable exchange of dissidents took place in November when six political activists, recognized as refugees by the UN, were deported from Thailand to Phnom Penh to face treason charges.
As with past HRW reports and international criticism, government officials dismissed the 2025 findings as propaganda based on flawed and incomplete research.
“Cambodia has evidence to refute these claims. Cambodia is a haven for civil society, with thousands of civil society organizations and unions operating,” said Pen Bona, the spokesperson for the government, before implying that HRW’s foreign funding corrupts its agenda.
Pen asserted that if Cambodia “lacked the right leadership, respect for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, the country would not have developed to the extent it has.”
Similarly, spokesperson for the government’s Human Rights Committee, Sreang Chenda, dismissed the latest report, saying it follows a pattern of criticism from civil society groups with opposition-leaning views.
When asked about Cambodia’s reform efforts since its last appearance before the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Sreang said the government has worked hard to implement recommendations, like expanding civil and political space and allowing citizens to freely use social media. But, he stressed, these freedoms must “remain within the boundaries of the law.”
HRW said since its last review in 2019, the government has failed to make progress on the recommendations it accepted.
Instead, authorities kept harassing critics, including in the months leading up to the UN review, the rights group added.
(Additional reporting by Seoung Nimol)