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January 2014 started bloody and violent as thousands of mixed security forces mobilized to ruthlessly suppress a global strike by garment workers for a rise in minimum wage as well as putting an end to the three-week long post-election protest by the opposition. LICADHO monitors witnessed security forces firing live ammunition and grenades directly at crowds of civilians near the Canadia Industrial Area on Veng Sreng road, Phnom Penh, leading to four shot dead, one disappearance of a 15 year old boy, Khem Sophath, and 38 others hospitalized in the worst state violence to hit Cambodia in over a decade.Following the events that occurred on Veng Sreng road, the ruling party continued a policy of systematically repressing civil society as security forces continued to operate with impunity against peaceful protests, access to public spaces such as Freedom Park were shutdown, numerous human rights activists were arrested and tried on spurious charges, and laws designed to curtail freedom of assembly and expression continued to be drafted.

Although the last year saw the end of the political deadlock between the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) following the 2013 elections; the arrests, charges, and de- tention of various CNRP officials and supporters throughout political ne- gotiations gave CPP the upper hand at the negotiating table. These arrests demonstrated the judiciary continues to remain firmly within the hands of the CPP, once again stressing the lack of independence in Cambodia’s legal system.