Land policy and administration

Five local representatives from Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district were questioned in court on Friday, following accusations from a Vietnamese company of unlawful land-grabbing, according to NGO Adhoc and community representatives. ...

Continuing a campaign by the opposition to inspect alleged encroachment upon Cambodian territory along the Vietnamese border, CNRP lawmaker Ou Chanrith on Saturday led a trip to a disputed cashew farm in Svay Rieng province, fellow lawmaker Kong Saphea said Sunday. ...

The recent ban on dredging sand from the Mekong has resulted in some people resorting to more innovative measures to obtain landfill. On the island of Koh Oknha Tey, also known as Silk Island, people pay from 7,000 to 10,000 riels per cart-load for delivery ...

The Ministry of Mines and Energy on Friday announced the provisional winners of its public auction to award four licenses to dredge sand on a stretch of the Mekong River clogged by a build-up of silt, which is obstructing the passage of vessels through the ...

CNRP lawmaker Mao Monyvann on Wednesday said his delegation of opposition lawmakers and party supporters was once again thwarted in their efforts to visit a disputed border post along Cambodia’s contentious frontier with Vietnam, this time by Cambodian police. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday received Vietnamese Communist Party Politburo official Le Hong Anh at his office in Phnom Penh and asked that Vietnam remain “calm” over recent fact-finding trips to the border led by opposition lawmakers. ...

In perhaps the most comprehensive review to date of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 2012 land titling project, the NGO Forum on Tuesday said the campaign has yielded major benefits, but not without some serious costs—particularly for the country’s beleaguered indigenous communities. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen reacted to the Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmakers’ accusations of irregularities in the determination of the Cambodian-Vietnamese boundaries. ...

Residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeung Trabek area yesterday balked at the options to either pay the government for land certificates or sell their land to the municipality during a forum attended by local authorities, area inhabitants and housing rights officials. City officials earlier this year said ...

The head of the government’s border committee said Tuesday that villagers in Tbong Khmum province who are angry about Vietnam claiming 16.6 hectares of land they had farmed failed to inform authorities that they used the land before the countries signed a 2011 border agreement. ...

A representative of 163 families who were awarded a hectare of land four years ago after a lengthy legal battle accused one of the awardees in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday of inventing a different group of 163 families with claims to the ...

More than 1,500 villagers on Tuesday marched from seven districts in Preah Vihear province to the provincial capital to call for action against companies involved in various land disputes, but a clampdown by police meant that only about 120 made it to the protest site, ...

Developers are eagerly anticipating today’s auction of four licenses to dredge sand on a section of the Mekong River, the first bidding round for licenses since the government began a nationwide crackdown on illegal sand dredging in April. ...

Describing complainants as opportunists, the Apsara Authority on Sunday rejected allegations that it has not complied with a sub-decree ordering it to return 220 hectares of land to local villagers in Siem Reap province. ...

More than 300 locals from Tbong Khmum province accompanied by opposition lawmakers scuffled with Vietnamese soldiers Sunday morning while trying to reach a disputed 16.6-hectare plot of land along the country’s border with Vietnam. ...

Despite an order from the Supreme Court, officials at Prey Sar prison Thursday refused to release a woman on bail who has been jailed since November as part of a bitter land dispute with tycoon Khun Sear, her lawyer said. ...

Representatives of 29 families involved in a land dispute with the Defense Ministry in Phnom Penh visited the National Assembly on Thursday, seeking a response to a petition they submitted last month asking for intervention. ...

In this sparsely populated area along the eastern fringe of Bokor National Park in Chhuk district, villagers are scrambling to claim sandy, arid land as an international company surges ahead with its palm oil plantation. As in many of the hundreds of unresolved land disputes playing ...

The Ministry of Mines and Energy will hold an auction next month putting up for sale four licenses to dredge sand along a stretch of the Mekong River, according to a statement posted to the ministry’s website on Tuesday. ...

At least 16 more families that have been locked in a bitter and lengthy dispute with the municipal government over land in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood accepted municipal governor Pa Socheatvong’s offer of a land swap Thursday morning. ...

According to a new survey, land disputes in Cambodia lead to employment insecurity, causing poverty, food insecurity, and increasing physical and psychological insecurity. The survey found that most expressed a desire for the government to eliminate land disputes and set a clear policy to address ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Saturday fined and released 10 workers swept up in a crackdown on illegal sand dredging operations by the Ministry of Mines and Energy last week. ...

Three owners of sand dredging companies were among 11 people arrested Thursday by military police—working in tandem with the Ministry of Mines and Energy—for operating without a proper license, according to a spokesman for the ministry. ...

Cambodia should urgently disclose all information about land ownership and rethink its “wholesale sell-off” of the country’s natural resources, a local rights group said yesterday. The call to release information about Cambodia’s land sector, including a declaration of revenues, came as Licadho released an analysis of ...