Social development
Civil society
Twenty-Two Years On, Paris Peace Agreement Far From Realized
More than two decades after the Paris Peace Agreement, which was meant to open the way for peace and multiparty democracy in Cambodia, legal experts and human rights advocates said Tuesday the government has largely abandoned the vision of the accord. Speaking at a conference on ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/twenty-two-years-on-paris-peace-agreement-far-from-realized-45702/
Petition for Investigation Into Sugar Trade Gains Support
More than 55,000 people have joined an online petition set up by a pair of French nongovernment groups urging the European Union (E.U.) to immediately launch an investigation into local sugar plantations accused of illegally evicting hundreds of Cambodian families. At the center of the dispute ...
Zsombor Peter and Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/petition-for-investigation-into-sugar-trade-gains-support-45704/
SL Garment Protesters Gain Little From Talks at Labor Ministry
A two-day meeting between union leaders, senior government officials and representatives of the SL Garment Factory failed Tuesday to reach a solution for factory workers, who have been on strike since early August and on Monday demonstrated in front of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Phnom ...
Ben Woods and Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/sl-garment-protesters-gain-little-from-talks-at-labor-ministry-45708/
City Says It Will Provide Land Titles to 33 Boeng Kak Families
Phnom Penh Municipality will provide land titles to 33 more families living in the city’s Boeng Kak neighborhood, a municipal official said Tuesday, roughly a third of those still seeking property rights in the area that has seen some 3,000 forced evictions. “First, we will solve ...
Khy Sovuthy and Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/city-says-it-will-provide-land-titles-to-33-boeng-kak-families-45710/
CNRP Assured of No Roadblocks During Demonstration
Opposition CNRP lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua last night emerged from a meeting with Phnom Penh City Hall representatives proclaiming that she had the assurance of the Municipal police chief that there would be no roadblocks in or around Phnom Penh during the opposition’s three-day demonstration starting ...
Khuon Narim and Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/cnrp-assured-of-no-roadblocks-during-demonstration-45698/
Police Train at Freedom Park as Protesters Target Hun Sen’s House
As hundreds of riot police conducted protest suppression drills in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park on Monday morning, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s mansion in the center of the city was the focal point of a demonstration by some 2,000 garment factory workers. Municipal police, along with 16 ...
Aun Pheap and Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/police-train-at-freedom-park-as-protesters-target-hun-sens-house-2-45638/
Another Haul of Illegal Logs Found on Vietnamese Firm’s Land
Forestry Administration officials on Friday confiscated 1,000 pieces of luxury wood on land belonging to a Vietnamese rubber company that has been repeatedly accused of illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, local officials and human rights workers said Sunday. Romash Svat, a representative of some ...
Aun Pheap and Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/another-haul-of-illegal-logs-found-on-vietnamese-firms-land-45514/
Court Dismisses Rights Groups’ Complaints
The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has dismissed two complaints submitted by two local human rights groups, Adhoc and the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), against local officials who they alleged had defamed and intimidated their staff, court officials said Friday. Adhoc filed a complaint against Pheng ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/court-dismisses-rights-groups-complaints-45516/
Immunisation program largest ever
Cambodia’s largest-ever immunisation program will launch today with the introduction of a new vaccine against rubella and measles, World Health Organization officials said yesterday. The Ministry of Health aims to inoculate more than four million children between the ages of nine months and 15 years before ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/immunisation-program-largest-ever
Cambodian trade unions urge garment workers not to join opposition’s mass protest next week
A Cambodian trade unions leader on Saturday called on garment workers not to participate in the opposition party-planned mass demonstration next week against the results of July’s election that handed victory to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling party. “I would like to appeal to all workers ...
Nzweek News Staff
http://www.nzweek.com/world/cambodian-trade-unions-urge-garment-workers-not-to-join-oppositions-mass-protest-next-week-90198/
Media Groups Call On ‘Political Elite’ to Protect Reporters
More than a dozen journalism and human rights groups have called on Cambodia’s political forces to protect journalists and guarantee citizens’ access to an open and unobstructed press during the current political unrest. In a statement released Wednesday, the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, along with ...
Lindsey Peterson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/media-groups-call-on-political-elite-to-protect-reporters-45436/
Security Guards Disrupt Memorial Ceremony for Slain Man
There were ugly scenes on Friday at Phnom Penh’s hill-temple Wat Phnom when district security guards scuffled, shouted abuse and punched a group of mostly women and monks who had gathered to hold a memorial ceremony for Mao Sok Chan—the 29-year-old man shot dead by ...
Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/security-guards-disrupt-memorial-ceremony-for-slain-man-45479/
Weak enforcement for strong acid
Kneeling outside a motodop and car battery store on Monivong Boulevard in the capital, a 15-year-old boy spends his days piping acid into batteries with his bare hands. His employer says she has no idea that Cambodia, as well as having an Acid Control Law – ...
Amelia Woodside and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/weak-enforcement-strong-acid
Land-titling process ‘urgent’, Oxfam says
Accelerating the mapping and titling of rural farmland should be an “urgent” priority of the government and civil society, particularly when it comes to protecting indigenous peoples’ and women’s rights, Oxfam representatives said yesterday. The remarks followed the release of an EU-funded survey of rural communities’ ...
Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/land-titling-process-%E2%80%98urgent%E2%80%99-oxfam-says
School buildings ‘failing test’
Two years out from the 2015 Millennium Development Goals’ target of universal access to education, Cambodia remains plagued by school infrastructure shortages, with a scarcity of classrooms and decrepit facilities that threaten students’ safety, NGOs and teachers say. At Slorkram Primary School in Battambang, teachers ...
Laignee Barron and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/school-buildings-%E2%80%98failing-test%E2%80%99
A raft of complications
Riun Pau ran out of food last week. For the 13-year-old and her family, that moment was the culmination of weeks of distress caused by flooding that had already ravaged their Battambang home and farmland. Pau’s neighbours are experiencing similar problems. In Battambang, 67.3 per cent ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/raft-complications
Authorities ‘ignoring’ children behind bars
Eight-year-old Sokun* spent almost the first seven years of his life in prison. Unlike other Cambodian children who have the freedom to play and run free, countless hours of his early life were spent in a hot, squalid and teeming cell in the prison where his ...
Kevin Ponniah and Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/authorities-%E2%80%98ignoring%E2%80%99-children-behind-bars
Sick children swamp hospital
As flood victims surge to the capital to receive medical treatment, doctors at Phnom Penh’s Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital say they’ve never seen such overcrowding. Parents holding their sick children and infants line the perimeter of the complex, spending up to seven hours crouched on hot ...
Laignee Barron and Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/sick-children-swamp-hospital
CPP hints at NEC reforms
The ruling Cambodian People’s Party has reiterated its commitment to carry out electoral reforms ahead of the 2017 poll in an apparent bid to appease key demands of the opposition, civil society and the international community following July’s disputed election. With rare frankness, the party says ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/cpp-hints-nec-reforms
Activists Demand Interior Ministry Lead Wat Phnom Attack Probe
Dozens of anti-eviction activists on Monday held a rally in Phnom Penh and submitted a petition to the Ministry of Interior, demanding the arrests of Daun Penh district officials they claim conspired to viciously attack them during a peaceful protest at Wat Phnom last month. On ...
Khuon Narim
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/activists-demand-interior-ministry-lead-wat-phnom-attack-probe-45111/
Armed Man at Rally Claimed to Be ‘Samdech Bodyguard’
A man apprehended by participants at a rally in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park on Sunday after he was spotted carrying a concealed pistol, signed himself into Calmette Hospital by listing his occupation as “Samdech Bodyguard,” in apparent reference to one of the three leaders of ...
Mech Dara and Simon Henderson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/armed-man-at-rally-claimed-to-be-samdech-bodyguard-45091/
Chaotic Scene as Gun Seized During Teachers’ Rally
A small gathering to mark World Teachers’ Day at Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park briefly descended into chaos Sunday when a crowd of rally-goers wrested a concealed gun from a man working for the Ministry of Information after he forced his way to the front of ...
Mech Dara and Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/chaotic-scene-as-gun%E2%80%88seized-during-teachers-rally-44997/
Anti-Eviction Protesters Clash With Security Forces
Protesters, including a band of angry monks, clashed with military and riot police on Thursday in Phnom Penh as authorities tried to prevent a local housing rights group from carrying out a rally against forced evictions. Housing Rights Task Force (HRTF), a coalition of five local ...
Alex Willemyns and Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/anti-eviction-protesters-clash-with-security-forces-44882/
City Hall Denies Teachers’ Day, International Habitat Day Rallies
Phnom Penh City Hall has turned down two requests by non-governmental groups to hold rallies and marches to mark both International Teachers’ Day and the international day for housing rights. Housing Rights Task Force (HRTF), a local NGO, was denied permission to organize a rally at ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/city-hall-denies-teachers-day-international-habitat-day-rallies-44785/