Land policy and administration

Thirteen families in Phnom Penh’s O’andoung village, who have been locked in a long-running dispute with tycoon Sok Kong’s Sokimex company, say their land is being flooded with sand as they wait for a response to a complaint filed with Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier ...

Families still waiting for promised land titles in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood said Sunday that the municipal government is offering to give them their long-awaited tenure rights only if they agree to give up part of their land. About 100 Boeng Kak families were left ...

The government’s announcement on Wednesday that companies looking to start rubber plantations could skirt a moratorium on new economic land concessions (ELCs) by taking over existing, dormant ones continued to make a good impression on prospective investors in town Thursday. Ly Phalla, who heads the Agriculture ...

Representatives of some of the 3,000 families evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood in recent years said Thursday that municipal government officials, who were ultimately responsible for the mass evictions, told them they would be inviting the World Bank and NGOs to help compensate ...

An existing moratorium on economic land concessions should be no impediment to pouring more cash into the Kingdom’s booming, and highly criticised, rubber trade, industry executives in the capital heard yesterday, as many current ELCs can simply be recycled to a new crop of investors. Ly ...

In yet another case of district security guards assuming the role of police officers, three evictees of the capital’s Boeung Kak lake area were detained in the capital yesterday morning and taken to a police station. Daun Penh district security guards seized Em Srey Touch, 41, ...

Years of fighting for their land came to an end for 17 families at Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak community yesterday when City Hall delivered them long-awaited land titles. The handover was part of a vow to resolve the capital’s main land disputes made by Phnom Penh ...

Land activists said it was a spiritual ceremony; authorities described it as the latest attention-grabbing from “professional protesters”. Whatever the case, once the familiar scuffling between menacing security guards and civilians had passed yesterday, a demonstration calling for the release of 21 workers and activists arrested ...

The Phnom Penh Municipality has broken ground on a new 11-story $3.5 million building that is intended to house the city’s public services, the municipal spokesman said Monday. Long Dimanche said construction on the building, which is being erected on a 1,000 square meter plot of ...

Auditors from the Coca-Cola Company visited Oddar Meanchey province on Friday to investigate allegations of land grabbing against sugar plantations that supply the global drinks giant, but called off a community meeting because of a heavy police presence, an NGO said Sunday. Chun Bora of the ...

Five Kompong Chhnang villagers locked in a land dispute with a company owned by the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem, who had repeatedly tried—and failed—to file a complaint with their provincial court, were summoned for questioning at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court ...

Police in Kratie province on Wednesday demolished the makeshift tents of about 300 families accused of squatting on public land inside a conservation area, two weeks after they forced many of the same families out of the area. Some of the families say they have lived ...

Environment Minister Say Sam Al failed to meet the villagers locked in a long-running land dispute with the Chinese-owned company Union Development Group (UDG) on Wednesday, despite visiting company officials in Koh Kong province, according to a rights worker and a provincial official. Mr. Sam Al ...

The Chinese-owned Union Development Group in Koh Kong province is bulldozing swaths of its land concession, originally intended for a massive tourist resort, to plant cassava and palm oil trees instead, a CNRP lawmaker-elect said Monday. Son Chhay, lawmaker-elect and CNRP chief whip, visited the area ...

The Ministry of Environment will relocate its offices to a plot of land near NagaWorld Hotel and Casino in Phnom Penh’s Chamkar Mon district after its planned new headquarters in Meanchey district were declared too far from the city’s center by the new environment minister, ...

Vietnam and China lead the pack of foreign companies granted economic land concessions in Cambodia for agro-industrial development by a wide margin, new data released by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries show. According to the ministry’s annual report, released last month, since 1993 the ...

Five families from Oddar Meanchey province’s Samraong district have filed a complaint with district authorities and rights group Adhoc in a bid to reclaim more than 16 hectares of land they allege was sold to other villagers by their village chief without their permission. Adhoc provincial ...

Lawmakers-elect from the Cambodia National Rescue Party are scheduled today to visit families in Koh Kong province affected by a long-running land dispute with Union Development Group, just weeks after the company destroyed dozens of homes there. Rights groups say that Chinese-owned Union Development has burned ...

The Court of Appeal on Friday overruled a decision by the Municipal Court ordering the company 7NG Group to provide a total of $195,000 in compensation to 13 families whose houses were destroyed during the violent eviction of the Dey Krahorm community in 2009. “The Court ...

Borei Keila residents on Thursday cast a symbolic curse on the people they say are responsible for making their lives a misery since violently evicting them from their homes two years ago. In the latest development in the long-running dispute, security guards and riot police last ...

Several dozen families in Banteay Meanchey province involved in land dispute were given 100 hectares of replacement land in O’Chrou district yesterday, but have refused to accept it because it is already claimed by more than 230 other families, two village chiefs said. The provincial government ...

Twelve Preah Vihear villagers were called to court this week regarding an ongoing land dispute they claim has resulted in the bulldozing of their family land and livelihood. The villagers are among some 67 families in Kulen district’s Srayong Cheung village who say the government sold ...

Two residents of the Borei Keila community remained hospitalized Sunday after a Valentine’s Day clash with authorities on Friday that left 19 people injured, a community representative said. Although most of the 19 were only slightly injured, two women were more severely hurt and are still ...

More than 30 families continued to demonstrate in Preah Vihear province’s Chheb district on Friday and Saturday over what they say is the illegal clearing of land by a Chinese company, villagers said Sunday. The families accuse Rui Feng (Cambodia) International of clearing 500 hectares of ...