Civil society

A senior official yesterday urged local leaders to share information on available community services and government changes to residents as the Ministry of Information yesterday laid out its social accountability strategic action plan for the coming year and eyed last year’s results. ...

Outspoken environmental activist Alex Gonzalez-Davidson has been arrested by Interior Ministry officers and taken in an unmarked car to the Ministry of Interior, a rights group and witnesses have said. Cheang Sophos, a senior investigator for local rights group Licadho, said that Gonzalez-Davidson was arrested at ...

Dismissing a recent report showing a sharp increase in land disputes, the government has said such conflicts are in fact decreasing and formally called on rights group Licadho to release its findings. Licadho reported last week that it recorded about three times as many new land ...

An immigration official said Sunday that his department would wait for orders before moving to deport environmental activist Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, whose visa the government refused to renew after it expired Friday. ...

fter rights group Licadho released a statement Thursday saying that more than 10,000 Cambodian families were newly affected last year by land disputes in the 13 provinces where it has monitors—a three-fold increase from 2013—a government spokesman on Friday slammed the NGO’s report as “baseless ...

Seven giant puppets in the shapes of endangered animal species will snake their way through Siem Reap City Saturday night, carried by the 500 children who created them as part of a program that mixed art and the environment. ...

The number of families newly affected by land disputes last year was three times that of 2013, according to figures documented by local rights group Licadho. In a statement released yesterday, the group “strongly expresse[d] its concern” at the surge in disputes, noting that in 2014 ...

Three mothers say they fear their sons are being coerced into fabricating molestation accusations against a man they know as the patron saint of Phnom Penh’s riverside but who police and child-protection activists say is a predator. ...

Three of the country’s largest unions on Wednesday added their voices to a global campaign urging member states of the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Governing Body, which Cambodia recently joined, to not revoke the option to go on strike as a fundamental right. ...

The Ministry of Interior on Wednesday said it was standing by its decision to not renew the visa of outspoken environmental activist Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson in the face of mounting pressure from fellow activists, NGOs, unions, students and monks—even opposition leader Sam Rainsy—to reverse course. ...

The appropriate scope of a controversial proposed ban on NGOs “insulting” political parties in election campaigns on Monday continued to divide the CPP and CNRP during talks to amend the nation’s election law, with the negotiating teams deciding to pass the issue on to their ...

Disgraced anti-sex trafficking activist Somaly Mam’s new charity – which is headed by former staff of her fallen foundation, a Hollywood actress and a PR guru – announced yesterday that it has been given the green light in the US. ...

Having begun life in an overcrowded cell with nowhere to play, little to eat and surrounded by abuse, when Dara* left prison at nearly 4 years old, he had not yet spoken a single word. According to the report, which was released on Saturday, Dara’s ...

As opposition grew yesterday over plans to remove Areng dam activist Alex Gonzalez-Davidson from the country when his visa expires later this week, analysts said the government was hoping to clear the way to develop the valley. ...

A draft law to protect state secrets has been in the works for more than two years and could be submitted to the Council of Minister for review in two months’ time, a senior police official said yesterday. ...

Bokor Mountain, Kampot province – Spurred on by social media rumors that Vietnamese tourists are flocking to this colonial-era retreat for elaborate, hidden ceremonies at the graves of their ancestors, CNRP lawmaker Yem Ponhearith on Thursday led about 50 officials here on a fact-finding trek. ...

Government spokesman and four-star General Khieu Sopheak has threatened to sue an NGO worker over his “false allegations” about Montagnard asylum seekers. Sopheak said authorities had only arrested “illegal Vietnamese immigrants”, and called on Chhay Thy, provincial coordinator for local rights group Adhoc and the ...

The electoral reform working groups from the ruling CPP and opposition CNRP resumed talks Monday after canceling their meetings last week, with officials from both parties again defending their controversial push to ban NGOs from “insulting” parties during election campaigns. ...

More than 57,000 primary school-aged children across the country are currently missing out on an education, according to the Cambodian Consortium for Out of School Children (CCOSC), a new group set up to implement a major push to get young Cambodians into the classroom. Officially ...

The number of Cambodian women caught in abusive marriages in China is increasing dramatically, according to rights groups, which last year helped repatriate nearly 50 brides who had been either trafficked abroad or lured by the promise of a better life. Local rights groups Adhoc and ...

Following reports of endemic corruption and suppression of dissent in the Kingdom last year, Cambodia was once again classified by global watchdog Freedom House as “not free” in a generally bleak report released yesterday. In Freedom of the World 2015, Freedom House’s assessment of the real-world ...

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Sunday released a statement condemning National Military Police Commander Sao Sokha for his admission that he sanctioned a “partisan use of force” in a January 15 speech in which he spoke of opposition protesters as the military police’s foes. ...

Sixteen local NGOs released a joint statement Thursday calling on Prime Minister Hun Sen to publicly repudiate National Military Police Commander Sao Sokha’s January 15 speech in which he said he learned strategy from Adolf Hitler. ...

Abuse, discrimination, exploitation and corruption are endemic in Cambodia’s prisons, spurred on by judicial and penal systems “driven by nepotism”, according to a new report from local rights group Licadho. The report, Rights at a Price: Life Inside Cambodia’s Prisons, which was released yesterday, details a ...