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A former deputy governor and social media influencer, Thy Sovantha, has been sentenced to a few years’ jail by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court docket on Monday for posting messages that jeopardized the Cambodian military and incitement to disturb social safety throughout the Cambodia-Thailand border dispute.
Her husband, Phe Sovannarith, additionally acquired a three-year jail time period for being an confederate. Each had been fined six million riel (about $1500) every, based on courtroom spokesperson Y Rin.
Sovantha, who was arrested in December 2025, posted info that a number of frontline troopers suffered well being issues, akin to hypertension, diabetes, liver and kidney ailments, on account of alcohol consumption. The allegation was dismissed as pretend information.
Previous to her removing as deputy governor of Areyksat metropolis in Kandal province, Sovantha was a youth activist with the now-dissolved opposition social gathering, Cambodia Nationwide Rescue Social gathering, which was distinguished throughout the 2013 nationwide election.
She defected to the ruling Cambodian Individuals’s Social gathering later however was expelled by its President, Hun Sen, following her criticism of the navy’s border affairs.
Greater than 30 individuals, together with political and social activists and journalists, had been arrested between mid-2025 and early 2026 over social media posts regarding the Cambodia-Thailand border dispute which broke out in July and flared once more in December alongside the neighboring nations’ 817-km (508-miles) frontier. The combating killed practically 100 individuals and displaced nearly 1,000,000 on each side earlier than a ceasefire was reached.
