Kem Sokha, the 72-year-old former leader of Cambodia's now-dissolved main opposition party, has been granted a royal pardon, ending a 27-year house arrest sentence on treason charges that human rights groups had long condemned as politically motivated. The pardon decree was signed by Hun Sen — Cambodia's former long-serving prime minister and current acting head of state, standing in for King Norodom Sihamoni while the monarch receives medical treatment abroad — on behalf of the king.

Sokha had led the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), which came close to defeating Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party in the 2013 general election. He was arrested in 2017, less than a year before the next crucial vote, after a video emerged in which he described receiving support from US pro-democracy organisations. Prosecutors charged him with conspiring with the United States to overthrow the government. The US embassy dismissed the case as built on a "fabricated conspiracy," and his conviction in 2023 as a "miscarriage of justice." An appeal against his sentence was rejected just last month before the pardon was announced.

The CNRP was subsequently dissolved and banned from contesting the 2018 elections, effectively making Cambodia a de facto one-party state. Sokha's arrest came amid a broader crackdown on dissent: on the same day he was taken into custody, the independent Cambodia Daily newspaper published its final edition under the front-page headline "Descent Into Outright Dictatorship" before being shut down.

While Hun Manet, who succeeded his father as prime minister in 2023, called the pardon "one more step towards strengthening national unity," critics argue the gesture falls well short of justice. Sokha remains barred from political activity and from leaving Cambodia for five years. Mu Sochua, a Cambodian pro-democracy activist in exile, described the pardon as an attempt to "whitewash" the government's actions, saying it amounted to little more than a change from house arrest to "political imprisonment." Human Rights Watch's Asia director, Elaine Pearson, echoed that view, warning that opposition politicians across Cambodia continue to face arbitrary arrest and politically motivated restrictions.

The case has long been seen as emblematic of the tactics used under Hun Sen's nearly four-decade rule to neutralise political opposition. While the pardon represents a partial reversal of what rights groups called a grave injustice, observers say meaningful political freedoms in Cambodia remain severely curtailed.