Baton-wielding Cambodian police clashed Sunday with protesters -- including Buddhist monks -- demanding higher wages for garment workers and the release of 23 people arrested during a recent bloody crackdown on a rally.

About two hundred textile workers, union members, land protesters and several monks attempting to rally at a Phnom Penh park were met by scores of riot police, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.

Cambodian authorities Saturday dispersed opposition protesters from their rally base in the capital and halted further protests against the kingdom's premier, a day after police launched a deadly crackdown on striking garment workers.

Dozens of security personnel armed with shields and batons flooded into the area in central Phnom Penh, causing several hundred protesters to flee, according to an AFP photographer at the scene.

Thousands of opposition supporters marched through the Cambodian capital Sunday vowing to rally for several days in a renewed bid to overturn Prime Minister Hun Sen's disputed election win.

The protest, called by the Cambodia National Rescue Party, comes a day after a rare meeting between opposition chief Sam Rainsy and the strongman premier to break the political paralysis gripping the kingdom.

A makeshift bomb was discovered Friday near Cambodia's parliament, police said, adding to tensions in the capital ahead of fresh planned protests over Prime Minister Hun Sen's disputed election win.

Bomb experts carried out a controlled explosion of the device -- made from TNT powder in a 10-liter plastic container -- causing a blast that shook nearby buildings, military police spokesman Kheng Tito told Agence France Presse.

The former "First Lady" of Cambodia's murderous Khmer Rouge regime was freed on Sunday, a court official said, after the country's war crimes tribunal had ruled she was unfit to stand trial.

Ieng Thirith, 80, who experts say has Alzheimer's disease, was driven in a convoy with police and officials from the purpose-built detention facility at the Phnom Penh court where she has been held since 2007.