Late last month Chhim Sithar went out for dinner with members of the Cambodian community in the Melbourne suburb of Springvale.
Less than 48 hours later, she was arrested at the airport in Phnom Penh.
Ms Sithar has emerged in recent years as one of the leading voices for workers' rights in the South East Asian nation.
Ms Sithar is head of a union representing workers from five-star hotel and casino giant NagaWorld, owned by a Malaysian billionaire.
NagaWorld's gold facade looms in Phnom Penh's skyline, and sits not far from Australia's embassy in the Cambodian capital.
Ms Sithar led long-running strikes after more than 1,300 workers, the majority of them union members, were laid off by the casino in April last year.
But her activism came with a cost — she was violently arrested, along with other unionists, in January this year and charged with "incitement to commit a felony", and released on bail in March.
She travelled to Australia last month to take part in the world congress of the International Trade Union Confederation.
It was this visit that authorities said justified her re-arrest, claiming it was a breach of her bail conditions.
But local NGO Licadho said neither Ms Sithar nor her lawyer were ever informed of this bail condition, and that her lawyer was denied access to her case file.
Her arrest has sparked global outrage — Australia's ambassador in Cambodia has registered his concerns about the "questionable basis for her arrest" with the Justice Minister, and unions in Australia and worldwide have called for her release.
Union-busting pattern in Cambodia
A recent Human Rights Watch report argues her case is part of a broader crackdown by Prime Minister Hun Sen's regime.
Ms Sithar featured prominently in the report, released last month, that documented how Cambodian authorities have been using legal tactics to curtail union activity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the government intensified its crackdown on independent unions, using public health and other arguments as ostensible justifications," the report said.
Ms Sithar is quoted at length in the report: "The authorities try to scare us. I am not scared to be rearrested," she said.
"Even when I am not in prison, I cannot freely exercise my right to be a union leader. I cannot give up because of the threat of prison. I have to stand up for workers' rights."
Human Rights Watch wrote that the authorities arbitrarily designated an ongoing strike by casino workers as illegal, and "used social distancing and other COVID-19 mitigation measures as a pretext to remove strikers and temporarily confine them for testing".
In the report, Ms Sithar described how "after we started our strike, a fake, new union suddenly appeared, which we call the 'instant noodle' union because it got registered with the Ministry [of Labor and Vocational Training] as fast as a cup of two-minute instant noodles".
She is now being held in the notoriously overcrowded Prey Sar Prison and was denied bail on Monday.
Australia calls for action
Former Victorian MP Hong Lim was among those who met Ms Sithar for dinner on her last night in Melbourne.
Mr Lim himself has been caught in the crosshairs of Hun Sen's regime – he was charged and tried in absentia for "incitement", but acquitted by a Cambodian court in October last year.
Mr Lim said Ms Sithar attended a Buddhist temple in Melbourne, as well as a pre-poll event with recently re-elected Clarinda MP Meng Heang Tak.
"We wanted her to see what real democracy at work is like," Mr Lim said.
He said the Cambodian community was holding a fundraiser for Ms Sithar's union this weekend and was urging for her to be released.
"She gave me a scarf, and she said that she knitted this during her time in prison," Mr Lim said.
"It almost moved me to tears. And then the following morning they just locked her up."
He said she cared profoundly about her colleagues, who he said had been treated poorly in being laid off.
Her arrest also comes in the lead-up to next year's national election.
The ruling Cambodian People's Party holds all 125 parliamentary seats, and Hun Sen is expected to retain his decades-long hold on power due to a long campaign of crushing opposition voices in the country.
"This is classic, typical, vintage Hun Sen… in this case, he overplayed his hand, because of the reaction around the world," Mr Lim said.
"They draw attention to how cruel they are, how stupid. This regime, it's just beyond contempt."
Outgoing Australian Ambassador to Cambodia, Pablo Kang, tweeted in the days following Ms Sithar's arrest that he had raised the issue with Justice Minister Koeut Rith.
A spokesperson from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the government was concerned and that the ambassador would continue to monitor her situation in Phnom Penh.
The US Ambassador also raised the alarm about her arrest.
Unions worldwide, including the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), called for her to be released immediately and for the charges to be dropped.
"The ACTU joins the international union movement in condemning her arrest and will be closely monitoring this situation," ACTU President Michele O'Neil said in a statement.
"We call on the Cambodian government to release Ms Chhim immediately and drop all charges against her.
"The persecution of union leaders and working people around the world breaches their international labour and human rights and should be condemned."
Alleged breach of bail conditions
A document dated March 14, but only circulated by government mouthpiece Fresh News after her arrest on November 26, stipulated that Ms Sithar was under judicial supervision and could not leave the country without the court's permission.
But the judicial supervision order does not appear to include Ms Sithar's thumbprint, which is typically required to show that she has seen the document.
Local NGOs and media have reported her lawyer was not informed of that bail condition, and that her lawyer's request to see the case file, where that information would be contained, was never granted.
Ms Sithar had already made two trips abroad, to Thailand in September and October, returning to Cambodia without incident, the union's vice-president told local media outlet VOD.
Ministry of Justice spokesman Chin Malin said if her lawyer was claiming they were unaware of the court's supervision order, they were a "fake" or "incompetent" lawyer in need of more training.
"They are lying as they have received a court decision and also aware they are placed under judicial supervision. If lawyers do not know this, they are not real lawyers," he said.
When asked if he had a response to the Australian ambassador registering his concerns with the Justice Minister, Mr Malin said; "We don't have to [give a] response", as everything had proceeded in accordance with Cambodian law.
When asked why she was arrested after her Australia visit, rather than her trips to Thailand, he said the authorities have "a discretion to do it at any time for such violation".
In Parliament last week, Australian Labor MP Julian Hill blasted the decision to arrest Ms Sithar under "Hun Sen's gangster regime".
Mr Hill, who said he met Ms Sithar for coffee during her visit to Australia, told the ABC it was "absolutely outrageous" that she was jailed after attending an international event here.
"It makes Cambodia and the Cambodian government look like a tin-pot dictatorship, a total joke," he said.
"She's an incredibly energetic, intelligent, motivated young woman, just a terrific human … the things that she believes in and is fighting for are just for ordinary, everyday working people," he said.
"There was no conspiracy of the conversation. She wasn't trying to undermine the government. She was standing up for the people who she worked alongside, to simply be paid their entitlements and re-employed in jobs that are vacant."
