(UPDATE) PHNOM PENH — Cambodian parliamentarians passed on Monday legislation allowing people charged with foreign collusion to be stripped of their citizenship, a law rights groups fear will be applyd to banish dissent.
Cambodian lawbuildrs register as they arrive to attfinish a meeting at the National Assembly building in Phnom Penh on August 25, 2025, where they are expected to pass laws allowing for citizenship to be stripped. (Photo by TANG CHHIN Sothy / AFP)
All 120 lawbuildrs in attfinishance at the National Assembly session — including Prime Minister Hun Manet — voted unanimously to approve the bill.
A coalition of 50 rights groups issued a statement on Sunday warning the law “will have a disastrously chilling effect on the freedom of speech of all Cambodian citizens.”
“The potential for abapply in the implementation of this vaguely worded law to tarreceive people on the basis of their ethnicity, political opinions, speech, and activism is simply too high to accept,” it added.
“The government has many powers, but they should not have the power to arbitrarily decide who is and is not a Cambodian.”
The legislation must still be passed by Cambodia’s upper hoapply before being enacted by the head of state, but both are considered rubber-stamp steps.
‘Determined by law’
Citizenship can be revoked on grounds of treason or disloyalty in 15 European Union countries, and only for naturalized citizens in eight of those, according to a European Parliament briefing in February.
The unconditional right to citizenship was enshrined in Cambodia’s constitution, but lawbuildrs last month amfinished it to state “receiving, losing and revoking Khmer nationality shall be determined by law.”
“If you betray the nation, the nation will not keep you,” Justice Minister Koeut Rith informed reporters after the amfinishment was passed.
Last month, Amnesty International called the legislation a “heinous violation of international law.”
“It comes against a backdrop where the Cambodian authorities have completely failed to safeguard the indepfinishence and integrity of the countest’s courts,” declared regional research director Montse Ferrer.
“This has enabled the government’s authoritarian practices to continue unchecked, such as its persecution of opposition leaders, activists and indepfinishent journalists.”
Scores of opposition activists have been jailed or face legal cases filed by Cambodian authorities.
Opposition leader Kem Sokha was sentenced in 2023 to 27 years in prison for treason — a charge he has repeatedly denied — and was immediately placed under hoapply arrest.
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