Anti-government demonstrators called off a mass rally they had planned to stage in the Cambodian capital today after a bloody crackdown on garment workers allied with the protest movement.

The decision to scrap the rally came after security guards and city workers, watched over by riot police, dismantled a camp occupied by anti-government demonstrators.

Friday's clashes, in which police shot dead four people, have stoked a political crisis in which striking workers and supporters of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party are challenging a government they say cheated its way to power and is depriving them of a fair wage.