Law and judiciary

Three of the country’s largest unions on Wednesday added their voices to a global campaign urging member states of the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Governing Body, which Cambodia recently joined, to not revoke the option to go on strike as a fundamental right. ...

Thailand’s army has asked Cambodia “not to jump [to] the conclusion” that its soldiers were to blame for the deaths of three Cambodian loggers who were shot dead earlier this month while searching for rosewood across the border, according to Thai media. ...

Former Phnom Penh Municipal Court director Ang Mealaktei, who was ousted Tuesday amid claims of corruption at the court, was granted a new position in the Ministry of Justice during the ceremony to replace him on Wednesday. ...

The Labor Ministry official in charge of garment factory faintings declared Wednesday’s reopening of a Svay Rieng province factory—where 100 workers fainted in the past week due to chemical fumes—a relative success, with only three more women collapsing while working. ...

A senior Phnom Penh Municipal Court official has been accused of threatening a Singaporean businessman in an attempt to pressure him into confessing to a crime he did not commit. ...

Plans to bring the raucous 10-day rave Kazantip to Cambodian shores were in tatters Wednesday as hundreds of Russian revelers showed up at the bridge leading to Koh Puos island to find the way blocked by a 2-meter-high metal barricade. ...

The Ministry of Interior on Wednesday said it was standing by its decision to not renew the visa of outspoken environmental activist Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson in the face of mounting pressure from fellow activists, NGOs, unions, students and monks—even opposition leader Sam Rainsy—to reverse course. ...

Authorities in Preah Sihanouk province have had yet another change of heart about the notoriously wild Kazantip music festival, pulling the event from Sihanoukville’s Koh Puos island for a second time, with one official citing a desire to dissuade “indecent tourism.” ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court director Ang Mealaktei was removed from his position on Tuesday pending an investigation into rampant corruption at the court since he became its chief judge less than a year ago. The decision was made public hours after Prime Minister Hun Sen criticized ...

A year after a Vietnamese man was caught trying to mail teddy bears stuffed with the drug precursor chemical pseudoephedrine to Australia from Phnom Penh, he appeared in court on Tuesday over another alleged drug smuggling scheme. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday has proposed the Supreme Council of Magistracy to take urgent measure on a judge responsible for releasing parents of fugitive Thong Sarath on bail. ...

The chief judge at Phnom Penh Municipal Court has replaced, in a shake-up at the behest of Prime Minister Hun Sen, as the court pursues an ongoing murder investigation. Hours after Hun Sen’s order, the chief of Phnom Penh’s court, Ang Maldey, was fired and ...

Five men were sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday for selling nearly 1 kilogram of crystal methamphetamine to undercover police officers in the capital’s Tuol Kork district last April. ...

In an unanticipated act of leniency yesterday, Prime Minister Hun Sen established a new committee to deliver pardons to mothers jailed with their children, according to several attendees of the conference where the announcement was made. ...

CNRP spokesman Yem Ponhearith said on Monday that he plans to summon four government ministers to parliament to determine whether a remote area of Kampot province’s Bokor Mountain used for prayer ceremonies by Vietnamese tourists could be turned into a Cambodian cultural site. ...

The appropriate scope of a controversial proposed ban on NGOs “insulting” political parties in election campaigns on Monday continued to divide the CPP and CNRP during talks to amend the nation’s election law, with the negotiating teams deciding to pass the issue on to their ...

Opposition CNRP president Sam Rainsy on Monday weighed in on behalf of environmental activist Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, asking the Interior Ministry to reverse a decision to not renew the Spanish national’s visa over a traffic incident from September. ...

About 300 tuk-tuk and moto-taxi drivers protested outside the Phnom Penh offices of the Angkor Thom newspaper on Sunday morning, demanding that it correct an article about a traffic accident involving one of the drivers, according to a union official and the newspaper’s publisher. ...

Police arrested two Russian men at a rented villa in Sihanoukville on Saturday after a Moldovan man was injured in a fight that began when one side allegedly demanded a portion of the profits from the upcoming Kazantip music festival, officials said on Sunday.  ...

The Kompong Speu Provincial Court on Saturday charged three men with illegally establishing an armed force, illegally using weapons and wearing fake military uniforms after they were arrested for operating a fake roadside checkpoint to extort money from loggers, officials said on Sunday. ...

A group of university students from Phnom Penh opposed to a proposed hydropower dam in Koh Kong province entered the project’s construction site on Sunday for a 10-day study aiming to highlight the area’s alternative potential for ecotourism. ...

Having begun life in an overcrowded cell with nowhere to play, little to eat and surrounded by abuse, when Dara* left prison at nearly 4 years old, he had not yet spoken a single word. According to the report, which was released on Saturday, Dara’s ...

A draft law to protect state secrets has been in the works for more than two years and could be submitted to the Council of Minister for review in two months’ time, a senior police official said yesterday. ...

More than a dozen opposition party officials have accused Thailand of encouraging extrajudicial killings of Cambodians along the border. In a strongly worded letter sent to Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on Monday, the Cambodia National Rescue Party MPs asked for an independent investigation into an ...