Crime and law enforcement

Hundreds of prisoners will be pardoned or see their sentences reduced on Tuesday following a request by the Ministry of Interior to the King. The royal pardons and sentence reductions, which benefit 339 inmates, coincide with Pisak Bochea Day, a celebration of the Buddha’s birth. ...

When the 2007 Traffic Law was passed, it required that the myriad private vehicles on the road bearing Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) number plates be removed and switched with civilian plates within one year. But more than six years after this deadline, the sight of ...

Customs officials over the weekend said they will shed no further light on Friday’s massive haul of three tons of illegal elephant ivory at Sihanoukville Autonomous Port—Cambodia’s biggest-ever ivory seizure—until investigations are complete and a case can be sent to court. A scan on containers that ...

Police arrested another three union representatives on Friday for allegedly inciting garment workers to strike and protest in front of their factory over the past few weeks, this time in Kandal province. It follows the arrest last week of six representatives of another union ahead of ...

A trial for two teens charged with intentional violence from a Stung Meanchey riot in November was unfair to the defendants, a statement released yesterday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) says. Calling the trial “deeply flawed”, HRW said the judge in the case showed open hostility ...

Independent union leader Ath Thorn said Sunday he had collected enough money from supporters to pay most of his $25,000 bail to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, and would deliver it to the court Monday. The court has charged Mr. Thorn, president of the Coalition of ...

Friends and family of Canadian journalist Dave Walker, whose badly decomposed body was found on May 1 in Siem Reap province, have issued new statements accusing the Cambodian and Canadian governments of being complicit in what they say was his murder. According to a statement posted ...

Cambodia’s Supreme Court on Friday upheld a decision refusing bail to 21 people arrested during a deadly worker strike crackdown, a defense lawyer said, as dozens of supporters protested outside, calling the charges against them politically motivated and demanding their release. The top court upheld the ...

Cambodian customs officers on Friday morning confiscated around three tons of elephant tusks at the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port in Southwestern Preah Sihanouk province. In February, customs officers nabbed two Vietnamese men at the Siem Reap International Airport for smuggling 79.5 kg of illegal elephant tusks ...

Media experts warn that Vietnam continues to restrict social media, and Cambodia could be following suit. At a forum in Washington to mark World Press Freedom Day on May 3, panelists said online and traditional media activities have been restricted by Vietnamese authorities. The forum, ...

Dana Beerdsen, a 19-month-old Dutch girl who was critically injured last month in an attack in which her mother was stabbed to death in their Phnom Penh home, died in a Bangkok hospital on Wednesday night, according to police. Lieutenant Colonel Mom Sitha, municipal foreign police ...

A government spokesman warned yesterday that legal action may be taken against the opposition leaders if their “unlawful” campaign rhetoric incites unrest. Tith Sothea, spokesman for the Council of Ministers’ Press and Quick Reaction Unit, said that the government will consider filing complaints against Cambodia National ...

A day after police in Kampong Speu province arrested six striking workers, the unexpected presence of about 100 military police officers at a garment factory in Takeo province had some union activists fearing the worst. Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW) president Pav Sina yesterday ...

Friends of Canadian journalist Dave Walker, who went missing under mysterious circumstances in February and was found dead in Siem Reap province last week, expressed anger Wednesday at the Cambodian police’s apparent unwillingness to investigate the 58-year-old’s death. Two-and-a-half months after the journalist vanished after going ...

A 19-month-old girl critically injured when her mother was stabbed to death in their Phnom Penh home last month has died in a Bangkok hospital, a Dutch Embassy official confirmed Thursday. “I can confirm this,” said an official at the Embassy of the Netherlands in Bangkok, ...

Better laws and enforcement that require motorbike riders and children to wear helmets could save more than 500 lives and $100 million over the next six years, a new study says. The study, undertaken by the Asian Injury Prevention Foundation, says a new law now ...

A World Bank-supported rubber company accused of land grabs has suspended some of its projects, as an investigation by the bank continues. The Hoang Anh Gia Lai company, which received support from the bank’s International Finance Corporation, said in a decision following an April 2 ...

At least three workers were arrested Tuesday morning outside the Wing Star Shoes factory in Kompong Speu province, where the Free Trade Union (FTU) has been leading a strike calling for benefits and back pay, according to police and a union representative. An FTU representative said ...

A group of 13 Vietnamese nationals were apprehended by Cambodian fishermen on Sunday night while illegally fishing off the coast of Kampot province and are being held for repatriation, according to a village representative and the provincial governor. Neak Sen, a representative of a fishing community ...

Defendants in a mass trial of 25 men and teenagers accused of joining a string of violent garment worker protests continued to profess their innocence during the second day of hearings at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday. Twenty-three of the men were arrested in ...

A court in Phnom Penh put off for the second time Tuesday the trial of 23 Cambodians arrested during a deadly worker strike crackdown, drawing criticism from rights groups who said the move was politically motivated. After a five-hour hearing, with hundreds of riot police manning ...

Police on Sunday detained a CNRP activist and confiscated 347 political video-CDs that he was transporting to the party’s headquarters in Phnom Penh, police and opposition party officials said Monday. The VCDs showed violent police and military repressions of land and labor activists and last ...

Some 500 supporters of union leader Vorn Pao and 24 others arrested during a string of garment worker protests since November will rally in front of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday on the second day of their trials, a union official said. All 25 ...

Condemnation has grown following Friday’s attack on a journalist near Freedom Park as the Ministry of Information joined the U.N. Human Rights Office in denouncing the attacks. On Saturday, the U.N.’s human rights representative in Cambodia, Wan-Hea Lee, called for an investigation into the beating of ...