By Lauren Crothers
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
A second member of Cambodia’s opposition party has been arrested in the capital, two days after another official was detained ahead of a trial related to violence during a July demonstration.
Tep Narin, a youth member of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), was also arrested Thursday in connection with the opposition-led demonstration at Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park.
In August, he was charged with joining an insurrection and granted bail on the condition that he would report to a police station twice a month, The Cambodia Daily reported.
It quoted a CNRP official as saying Narin failed to show last month.
Meach Sovannara, who was arrested Tuesday and is being detained at Prey Sar prison on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, has been charged with instigating aggravated, intentional violence, inciting others to commit a felony and leading an insurrectional movement - the last of which carries a 30-year term behind bars.
CNRP spokesman Yim Sovann confirmed Narin’s arrest by telephone Thursday morning, telling the Anadolu Agency it was politically motivated by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP).
“This is the tactic the CPP is using to intimidate our supporters, but we are not afraid of them,” he said.
“I think the tactic is the same… They will not be successful in muzzling the opposition,” he added. “I would like to appeal to the CPP stop using this tactic, and let’s do good things together for benefit of the country.”
Sovann said he did not have any information beyond the arrest, but believed Narin would be “brought to the court and then put in jail.”
The July 15 rally had been another attempt by the CNRP to call for lifting an arbitrary ban on demonstrations at Freedom Park, which was then blocked off with razor wire.
But a scuffle broke out and evolved into a bloody clash, with security guards and party members both injured in the fray.
Seven MPs and a party official were released from prison a week after the clash, after both parties managed to iron out a path of electoral reform - bringing an end to a ten-month political deadlock that followed last year’s disputed election.
Meanwhile, three more people and a monk were on Wednesday imprisoned for a year and fined $500 each after they spent Tuesday protesting the arrest and trial of seven other land activists in Phnom Penh.
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