Convicted, released

The court's decision on Friday, May 30, proved a mixed result for hundreds of supporters gathered near Phnom Penh's Municipal Court early Friday. The authorities had blocked the roads near the court, forcing supporters and family members of the 25 accused to assemble near barricades hundreds of meters away.

Ahead of the verdict, dozens of supporters lit incense at a makeshift Buddhist shrine on the road, then joined monks in praying for a just verdict. The hundreds-strong crowd rejoiced when word of the releases filtered out shortly after 9 am local time.

Yet even as they cheered the news that the men were to be freed, supporter Keo Maly, 36, spoke for many when she told DW that, "it's not ideal since they are innocent people [and] they should drop all charges."

A coalition of more than 20 rights and union groups echoed that, expressing their "extreme disappointment at the convictions … and the heavy fines imposed on some of them, following what was to all independent observers a deeply flawed trial process."

The coalition also condemned the authorities' failure to investigate separate incidents in November and January when the security forces used live ammunition against protesters, killing five.

Naly Pilorge, the director of rights group LICADHO, said the trials had made it plain that "there was insufficient evidence even to accuse most of these men let alone convict them."

"And yet they have now been forced to spend between five and eight months in pre-trial detention, a number of them with serious injuries sustained during their arrests as well as other health issues requiring urgent medical treatment," she said.

'Symbol of the struggle'

The defendants, whom the coalition described as "a symbol of the struggle of Cambodian workers to receive a minimum wage of 160 US dollars," were freed on Friday. Each received a jail term of between one and four-and-a-half years; some were also fined.

It is the minimum wage that has long stood at the heart of problems in the garment sector, and the prime reason Cambodia lost nearly 900,000 work days last year to strike action, the most in its history.

The monthly minimum wage is currently set at $100, after the government agreed to raise it from $80 late last year. But workers say that still isn't enough; January's protests, during which most of the defendants were taken into custody, were directly linked to low pay.

Four garment workers were shot dead by the authorities in January's protests, and another was injured and is believed dead. The two other defendants on trial were detained during a violent protest in November when the authorities shot and killed a bystander. No investigation has been carried out into the killings.

Most of those who appeared in court are garment workers, but there are also several rights activists, a couple of unionists, and others who say they were merely bystanders whom the authorities arrested arbitrarily.

Blunt message

The violence in January made headlines around the world, and caused significant public relations problems for the global brands that source from Cambodia.

Earlier this week, a delegation representing dozens of the world's leading clothing labels, including H&M, Puma, The Gap and Inditex - delivered a blunt message to senior government officials: treat the sector's 600,000 workers better or risk losing our business.

The brands' stance is largely self-interested: aside from the bad PR associated with low-paid workers being killed and jailed for simply trying to earn a higher wage, the daily strike actions last year played havoc with sourcing.

The brands told the government that they would do their bit by paying more money to the factories to which they sub-contract their production, which would allow those factories to pay workers higher wages.

In return, the government must stop using violence and the courts against workers and unionists, it must establish a mechanism that properly assesses the minimum wage, and it must prosecute the security forces responsible for the killings of workers. Ahead of Friday's verdict, they had also let the government know that they would have taken a dim view, had the court case resulted in jail terms in the absence of sufficient evidence.

Moeun Tola, who heads the labor program at the Community Legal Education Center, a local NGO, said that, while he was disappointed with the convictions, he was glad to see the defendants released. International attention, he said, had made a difference in a corrupt court system that was firmly under the executive's thumb.

"The news today is also coming from that [pressure], because the brands, the global union, also our network [and pressure from] the consumer [combined to] make the government nervous," he said.

Face-saving result

Jyrki Raina, the general secretary of the IndustriALL Global Union, which has 50 million members in 140 countries, was present at this week's meetings between the Cambodian government and brands. He said it was important that the detainees were released.

"While we are happy after their release today, we see an attempt to save face with prison sentences that are harsh but suspended, after serious criticism by a number of international observers for lack of evidence and lack of a fair trial," he told DW via email.

Going forward, he said, IndustriALL would focus on the minimum wage and on the controversial trade union law, which the government wants to pass before the end of the year. And, he added, the demand made by brands and his union that the government pursue those responsible for the killings still stood.

"IndustriALL will continue to work with the brands, Cambodian government, unions and employers to get these reforms right to make the Cambodian garment industry sustainable, with living wages, freedom of association and functioning industrial relations," he said.

Dave Welsh, the country representative of the Solidarity Center, a US-based labor group, and who was present in court on Friday, told DW that the decision to release the men had brought "an enormous amount of relief - first of all with them, with their families, and with the trade union and human rights community in general."

And, he added, it represented a key step in efforts to get relations in the sector back on track.

"The message that we were trying to relay is that […] it would have been very difficult to move ahead on all of these issues - whether on the living wage, whether on the Trade Union Law, what have you - if these 23 remained, in our minds anyway, unjustifiably imprisoned," Welsh said. "So now that this is aside, I think there's a real opportunity to move forward."