A fired Capitol Tours bus driver was charged on Sunday with defamation for handing out leaflets in Battambang City urging people not to patronize the company.
The incident follows charges of intentional violence laid against four unionists last month over a bloody scuffle that broke out between ex-drivers and tuk-tuk drivers during a protest at a Capitol bus station in Phnom Penh. An activist and a former bus driver were arrested at the site of the protest; no tuk-tuk drivers have been charged or arrested.
A group of more than 40 fired Capitol drivers have been campaigning for months to get their jobs back, claiming they were dismissed illegally for trying to unionize under the Cambodian Labor Confederation (CLC).
Battambang Provincial Court Judge Chea Vannak said Ly Hong, who was arrested Friday, was charged and then released Sunday for handing out leaflets allegedly defaming Capitol Tours.
“I decided to put him under supervision with conditions,” he said, declining to comment further.
CLC posted an image of the offending leaflet to its Facebook page. It shows images of Capitol’s buses, the February 6 attack on the ex-drivers in Phnom Penh and two of the bloodied victims. The text accuses the company of firing the drivers unfairly and using “bad guys” to attack them, and urges the public not to use the bus service.
Mr. Hong said he was handing out the leaflets in Battambang City on Friday with four or five others and that the rest managed to escape once police arrived.
“The leaflets just asked people to postpone using Capitol because the company fired 45 drivers without cause,” he said.
“I was charged with defamation and the court ordered me to show up once a month,” he said. “I think it is not fair just for giving out leaflets. I was handcuffed like I was a criminal.”
Capitol Tours denies firing the drivers for wanting to unionize and has accused the drivers of informally picking up passengers and pocketing their fares.
The company’s general manager, Phan Sopheap, said he filed the complaint against the leafleteers as soon as he saw them on Friday and was demanding 100 million riel, about $25,000, in damages.
“This is business,” he said. “We had to file the complaint.”
Mr. Sopheap promised the same fate for anyone else handing out the leaflets anywhere in Cambodia.
“Wherever you do it, I will follow you and arrest you there and file a complaint right there,” he said. “Before, we ignored it. But we can’t sit still any more.”
