Ten campaigners from Mother Nature, one of Cambodia's last environmental activism groups, are facing jail sentences of five to 10 years if convicted in the plotting case, the details of which are unclear.
Five of them, wearing mourning outfits of all white, gathered at barricades outside the courthouse as the trial resumed on Wednesday.
They refused to go inside after security guards blocked journalists and their supporters from gathering at the entrance to monitor their trial.
"We have never done anything against the law. We are just Cambodian youths who love natural resources," Phuon Keoraksmey, one of the charged activists, told reporters.
"The charges against us are too extreme because they are criminal charges that could see us jailed for so long, between five and 10 years in prison," she added.
The other five defendants did not come to court.
The tussle over protecting or exploiting Cambodia's natural resources has long been a contentious issue in the kingdom, with environmentalists threatened, arrested and even killed in the past decade.
The trial, which opened on May 29, relates to Mother Nature's activism between 2012 to 2021.
The group has raised issues around the filling-in of lakes in Phnom Penh, illegal logging and the destruction of natural resources across the country.
"We see that forest protectors, people who defend for their lands, people who protect the environment are being prosecuted by courts. It is so embarrassing for the judicial system in Cambodia," activist Long Kunthea said outside court.
Among the 10 defendants is Mother Nature's co-founder, Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, a Spaniard who was deported from Cambodia in 2015 after he criticised government plans for a controversial dam.
Gonzalez-Davidson and two others also face charges of insulting the king, which could carry jail terms of between one and five years.
Three of the activists were previously jailed for organising a peaceful march protesting the filling-in of a lake in the capital to create land for real estate developments.
From 2001 to 2015, a third of Cambodia's primary forests -- some of the world's most biodiverse and a key carbon sink -- were cleared, and tree cover loss accelerated faster than anywhere else in the world, according to the World Resources Institute.
Much of the cleared land has been granted to businesses in economic land concessions that experts say have driven deforestation and dispossession in the country.
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