A former elected official from the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was beaten unconscious by unknown assailants in Cambodia’s capital on Friday, bringing to 13 the number of opposition members assaulted since the party’s leader Sam Rainsy announced plans to return home from exile in August.
The assault on Tep Chansokheya, who served as the councilor of O’Russey III commune in Phnom Penh’s 7 Makara district until Cambodia’s Supreme Court disbanded the CNRP in November 2017 for its role in an alleged plot of treason, came as the government prepared to respond to a report from the European Union which blasted its rights record and warned it could lose tariff-free access to the bloc.
Speaking to RFA’s Khmer Service after the attack, Tep Chansokheya, a 51-year-old widow and mother of two, said she had been speaking with another resident of the area near the O’Russey III commune office on Friday morning when she was set upon by two men, who immediately escaped on a motorbike after beating her and knocking her out.