Public land lease

After two hours of questioning, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday sent independent radio station owner Mam Sonando to Prey Sar prison for pretrial detention, where he will await a hearing on allegations that he tried to foment a secessionist movement in Kratie province. As Mr. Sonando was being questioned, ...

The US-based Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called on the government to release Beehive Radio owner Mam Sonando and drop all secessionist charges against him. Mam Sonando, 70, was arrested Sunday in Phnom Penh and has been charged with crimes related to sedition, for allegedly running ...

The number of new land disputes reported in the first six months of this year decreased by 38 percent compared to the same period in 2011, according to data released by rights group Licadho last week. According to the figures, which represent 15 of the country’s ...

Five women from the Boeng Kak lake community met with the U.S. ambassador-at-large for women’s affairs on Saturday in Siem Reap City, asking the U.S. to intervene in their case and put pressure on the Cambodian government to stop violence against women. Meeting on the sidelines ...

Mam Sonando, beleaguered owner of the independent Beehive Radio station, was arrested at his Phnom Penh home yesterday morning on a raft of charges relating to a so-called secessionist movement that authorities supposedly disbanded in Kratie earlier this year. More than a dozen plainclothes and uniformed ...

The US ambassador at large for Global Women’s Issues – an office in the US State Department – met with five of the Boeung Kak lake female activists on Saturday in a sidelines meeting of a Lower Mekong gender policy dialogue. “It was a full ...

Police in the capital yesterday arrested the alleged leader of a “secessionist plot”, Beehive Radio station director Mam Sonando, who had already been abroad for two months when hundreds of security personnel stormed a Kratie province village in May. Khieu Sopheak, a spokesman for the Ministry ...

Siem Reap City – Four women evicted from the Boeng Kak lake community and released from jail last month arrived here Friday in an attempt to meet Melanne Verveer, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for women’s affairs, who is part of a delegation visiting the country with ...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday postponed the first hearing in a long-running land dispute between dozens of villagers from Chikor Leu commune and sugar companies believed to be partly owned by ruling-party senator Ly Yong Phat. ...

Military police in Stung Treng province arrested five government officials yesterday after they forcibly stopped student volunteers from measuring property lines as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s national initiative to help settle land disputes. ...

Less than two weeks after being released from prison, the 13 women convicted in May for protesting evictions at Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community staged their first public action yesterday. The women, joined by about as many neighbors, submitted petitions to the Australian, French, U.K. and ...

A local police official in Ratanakkiri province has been suspended for demanding money from villagers before adding their names to a list of people eligible for Prime Minister Hun Sen’s new land-titling program, police and villagers said yesterday. A total of 1,100 student volunteers are being ...

There were scenes of jubilation in Cambodia’s capital last month when a group of 13 imprisoned women – including a 72-year-old grandmother – was set free by an appeal court. The women were arrested in May during peaceful demonstrations against the forced eviction of thousands ...

As the ASEAN summit turns Phnom Penh into a buzz of diplomatic activity, the chance to send a well-timed message has not been lost on the local community. Fifteen representatives of the evicted families of Borei Keila yesterday filed a petition asking US Secretary of State ...

Forestry Administration officials in Banteay Meanchey province have confiscated and continue to hold equipment valued at $1.5 million from a troubled biofuel plantation without any legal backing, an official in the provincial governor’s office said. Bulldozers, steamrollers and dump trucks were confiscated last month from a ...

A Friday press conference meant to be an act of defiance and a call for justice from the so-called Kratie “secessionists” was conspicuously short on both, as two accused secessionists failed to appear as promised to demand that the government present credible evidence against them. Instead, ...

Veun sai district, Ratanakkiri – Kitted out in their camouflage uniforms, military boots, belts and Ministry of Land Management baseball caps, the dozen or so student volunteers looked like a stern bunch. There was no smiling as they sat at wooden desks in an open pagoda ...

Adorned in new military uniforms, about 400 more young volunteers who have been enlisted into Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ambitious national land-titling scheme departed from Diamond Island yesterday armed with measuring tapes, computers and GPS units. The budding surveyors are the latest group of some 2,000 ...

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ latest list of economic land concessions reveals some peculiar discrepancies with known records of ELCs. Some that have recently been granted are missing, while others known to have been cancelled remain. The June 8 MAFF list makes no mention ...

At one time, palm oil production stirred a lot of excitement in Cambodia. Perhaps hoping to follow in the footsteps of palm oil giants Malaysia or Indonesia, more than 10 firms in Cambodia registered for land concessions for palm cultivation around a decade ago. Today, there is one left. The others decided palm ...

Bun Chhorn and Sok Tong – fugitives accused of orchestrating a “secessionist plot” in Kratie province – are refusing to admit their guilt, and will hold a press conference Friday in Phnom Penh to say as much, despite Hun Sen’s recent promise to drop their ...

Homeless Borei Keila evictees who have been living in tents surrounded by garbage since authorities bulldozed their homes in January pleaded outside Phnom Penh Municipal Hall for housing yesterday. Representative Chhay Kimhorn said the families could no longer stand living in tents and stairwells infested with ...

After years of futile protests demanding their land back, villagers forcibly evicted by sugarcane plantations connected to CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat launched a boycott campaign yesterday targeting the international firms that sell his sugar. Thousands of families accuse the senator’s plantations of forcing them off ...

The European Union should immediately remove trade preferences it gives to Cambodian sugar companies accused of human-rights violations including land grabs, representatives of the affected communities told a press conference in Phnom Penh yesterday. Community representatives from Koh Kong, Kampong Speu and Oddar Meanchey provinces said ...