Social development
Civil society
Putting parking reform in gear
With civil society, the opposition and even the ruling party talking more and more about the subject of electoral and judicial reforms in the wake of July’s contested national elections, some groups yesterday gathered to call for reforms in a more modest sector – parking ...
Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/putting-parking-reform-gear
Lawyers Against ‘Blood Sugar’ Launch Fundraising Campaign
A US-based group of lawyers has launched an online campaign to raise funding to support a lawsuit against a UK company that bought sugar from a Cambodian plantations linked to human rights abuses. The campaign is being undertaken by the International Senior Lawyers Project, which is ...
Kimseng Men
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/lawyer-against-blood-sugar-launch-funraising-campaign/1800116.html
Transparency NGOs Call for CPP to End Parking Corruption
A group of NGOs released a statement Thursday calling on the CPP government of Prime Minister Hun Sen to begin its program of promised post-election reforms by ending the practice of overcharging for motorcycle parking outside of local markets. The Affiliated Network for Social Accountability-Cambodia, a ...
Ben Sokhean and Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/transparency-ngos-call-for-cpp-to-end-parking-corruption-48213/
Boeng Kak Activists Protest State Violence Against Women
Less than a week after she was released from prison pending a retrial on controversial criminal charges laid down last year, housing rights activist Yorm Bopha on Thursday led a march of about 500 people to deliver a petition calling on the government to end ...
Khuon Narim and Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/boeng-kak-activists-protest-state-violence-against-women-48194/
ILO: women still lag behind in education
Despite making some gains, Cambodian women continue to fall well short of their male counterparts when it comes to education and position in the labour market, a study released yesterday by the International Labor Organization reports. Men account for just five per cent more of Cambodia’s ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ilo-women-still-lag-behind-education
New Report Reveals Distrust Between NGOs and Government
More than two months of research into relations between NGOs and the government was officially presented in Phnom Penh on Thursday, with an overriding message of distrust, and concerns that the proposed NGO Law will be repressive. Following the release on Wednesday of a summary of ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/new-report-reveals-distrust-between-ngos-and-government-48205/
Regional peers urge gov’t to probe deaths
An organisation made up of current and former elected representatives from across Southeast Asia has called on the United Nations to investigate the deaths of two people shot by police during protests over the past three months. In a statement released yesterday, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/regional-peers-urge-gov%E2%80%99t-probe-deaths
Speech therapists to help fill void
Forty-eight Cambodians will graduate today from what is being heralded as the Kingdom’s first speech-therapy training program. The graduates have been trained to fill a void in speech- and language-therapy services for an estimated 536,000 people in Cambodia affected by communication and swallowing disorders, according to ...
Amelia Woodside and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/speech-therapists-help-fill-void
Villagers say petition is a ‘trick’
Villagers in Kandal province alleged yesterday that officials had “tricked” them into thumb-printing a petition supporting tycoon Try Pheap’s claim that he is not involved in illegal logging and endorsing his defamation suit against two villagers. In a scathing report released last Wednesday, the Cambodian Human ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/villagers-say-petition-%E2%80%98trick%E2%80%99
Higher tax, healthier kids: study
A World Bank report highlighting the rate of Cambodian children exposed to second-hand cigarette smoke has bolstered calls to increase tobacco taxes threefold. The World Bank report, which was released on November 20 and titled Risking Your Health, claims nearly 50 per cent of all Cambodians under ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/higher-tax-healthier-kids-study
Gov’t to push rural sanitation
With the vast majority of rural Cambodians still lacking access to a toilet, and suffering the incumbent health risks, Ministry of Rural Development officials on Monday renewed long-standing intentions to improve the country’s sanitation infrastructure. Just days after World Toilet Day, the officials surveyed villages ...
Sen David and Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/gov%E2%80%99t-push-rural-sanitation
Court Refuses to Investigate Complaint Over Police Shooting
A student who filed a complaint to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court against the city’s municipal and military police chiefs over the fatal police shooting at the SL Garment Factory protest on November 12 said Tuesday that the court has refused to investigate his complaint. Neang ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/court-refuses-to-investigate-complaint-over-police-shooting-47944/
Where truth often gets ignored
On Friday morning, two sources quoted in a report on illegal logging will face questioning at the hands of a Kandal province prosecutor over allegations that they defamed Cambodian tycoon Try Pheap. Under the Cambodian penal code, the legal definition of defamation is much like that ...
Stuart White and Buth Reaksmey Kongkea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/where-truth-often-gets-ignored
Villagers ‘paid to log’ lost land
Local communities that lost their land via economic land concessions to private companies are now being paid by those same firms to illegally fell the trees that once sustained their livelihoods, a group of five advocacy groups contended yesterday. At a press conference, the NGOs singled ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/villagers-%E2%80%98paid-log%E2%80%99-lost-land
Cambodian NGOs Threaten to Expose More Illegal Logging
A group of Cambodian NGOs threatened on Monday to expose more cases of forestry crime involving businessmen and the police, saying they were unshaken by a defamation suit filed by top tycoon accused of illegal logging and land-grabbing. Representatives of the five organizations told reporters Monday ...
Radio Free Asia News Staff
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/logging-11252013185559.html
More Youth Involvement Needed To Settle Land Disputes, Groups Say
Local NGOs on Friday urged more participation in land dispute resolution by the nation’s youth. Youth participation can mean better laws, better application of those laws and greater respect for citizens, “especially for farmers and the poor,” said Chhit Sam Ath, executive director of the NGO ...
Kong Sothanarith
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/more-youth-involvement-needed-to-settle-land-disputes-groups-say/1795721.html
Defamation suits follow NGO report
Tycoon Try Pheap has filed a defamation complaint against two people quoted in an NGO report released last week that accused him of illegal logging and widespread land grabbing, summonses obtained yesterday reveal. The documents, bearing the signature of Kandal Provincial Court prosecutor Sam Rithy Veasna, ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/defamation-suits-follow-ngo-report
Impunity Reigns as Fatal Shootings Continue to Go Unpunished
Impunity reigns in Cambodia on the back of two consecutive years of fatal shootings by state forces for which perpetrators have evaded justice, local rights group Licadho said Friday in a statement to mark International Day to End Impunity on Saturday. Since the start of 2012, ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/impunity-reigns-as-fatal-shootings-continue-to-go-unpunished-47769/
Anti-Eviction Activist Yorm Bopha Freed on Bail
The Supreme Court on Friday temporarily freed jailed Boeng Kak anti-eviction activist Yorm Bopha on bail, but sent her case back to the Court of Appeal to be reinvestigated. During the hearing, which lasted an hour and a half, dozens of monks and supporters of the ...
Khy Sovuthy and Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/anti-eviction-activist-yorm-bopha-freed-on-bail-47709/
Cambodia hosts int'l vaccine, immunization meeting
The Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization (GAVI) Board meeting was held here on Thursday to decide which new vaccines will be added to the organization’s portfolio. The two-day meeting brought together 160 people who are representatives of donors and developing countries, civil society organizations, vaccine ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-11/21/c_132906783.htm
Rights Group Slams ‘Rampant Impunity’ in Cambodia
A Cambodian rights group said Wednesday that impunity is on the rise in Cambodia, hitting out at the authorities for failing to resolve a number of high-profile killings and bring the perpetrators to justice. Ahead of International Day to End Impunity on Saturday, the Cambodian ...
Radio Free Asia Staff
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/impunity-11202013182832.html
Alcohol a concern, say children
Though a bit young to be socio-political analysts, Cambodia’s children are major believers in the social value of education, are wary of the negative side effects of alcohol on their communities and place a high priority on honest government, a study released yesterday says. According ...
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/alcohol-concern-say-children
Report calls out Pheap
Logging tycoon Try Pheap’s rapidly expanding land empire, criticised by rights groups for displacing families and encroaching on protected forest areas, has grown to almost 70,000 hectares in size and is helping to facilitate a cross-border illegal logging operation, a report released today alleges. The Cambodian ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/report-calls-out-pheap
Cambodian Villagers Demand Land Activist’s Release Ahead of Appeal
More than 200 villagers involved in three different land disputes gathered in front of Cambodia’s top court in the capital Tuesday to demand the release of jailed rights campaigner Yorm Bopha ahead of her final appeal against a criminal conviction later this week. Yorm Bopha’s impending ...
Radio Free Asia Staff
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/appeal-11192013183435.html