Law and judiciary

Two outspoken critics of Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen are to be dragged to court this month on vague charges of “incitement to commit a crime,” but the defendants say they have done nothing illegal. Prominent activist monk Luon Sovath received a summons dated Oct. 22 ...

Police arrested a woman on suspicion of human trafficking in Tbong Khmum province’s Suong City on Monday, after the woman was found with a teenage girl whose parents had raised the alarm with local authorities once she went missing in Ratanakkiri province, officials said Tuesday. ...

About 5,000 workers from the Grand Twins International (GTI) garment factory in Phnom Penh who have been striking over wages and working conditions briefly returned to their stations Thursday in compliance with a court order, but resumed protesting the next day after rumors spread that ...

Two Vietnamese women were sentenced yesterday by Phnom Penh Municipal Court to two-and-a-half years in prison each for trafficking five Vietnamese women to have sex with wealthy men in a hotel. ...

The head of the country’s anti-graft body has said he has received two death threats since the unit responsible for directing investigations into public and private-sector corruption was established in 2010. ...

A 60-year-old woman was injured and sent to hospital yesterday when police cracked down on anti-eviction protesters blocking a busy bridge in Koh Kong province, villagers said. More than 100 villagers locked in a dispute with the company that manages the Koh Kong Special Economic ...

The National Assembly yesterday appointed a ruling Cambodian People’s Party stalwart to fill the final seat of the judicial body that oversees the Kingdom’s judges and prosecutors and whose political independence is already a target of criticism. A majority of 66 parliamentarians voted Ith Rady, an ...

Siem Reap Provincial Court summoned a provincial councillor and his oknha wife in for questioning last week after two businessmen filed a complaint accusing them of fraud amounting to $60,000. ...

With 10 alleged members of the “terrorist” Khmer National Liberation Front (KNLF) facing charges of treason, police yesterday threatened further arrests in Cambodia and abroad. The KNUF, or Tiger Head Movement, was accused of attempting to bomb the Cambodia-Vietnamese Friendship Monument in 2007, and the ...

Ethnic Tumpoun residents from Ratanakkiri’s Banlung district sent petitions to authorities yesterday to protest plans to erect a Buddha statue at Yeak Loam Lake, saying it will bring bad luck to their villages. ...

Local and international NGOs yesterday rallied behind the inaugural United Nations-declared International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists by urging the government to bring perpetrators to justice. Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said yesterday that the government was not responsible for any ...

Police in Cambodia have stepped up pressure on an anti-Vietnamese dissident group, claiming it is planning the violent overthrow of the government, local media reported Monday. The Khmer National Liberation Front, which alleges that Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government is a puppet of Vietnam, has “hundreds ...

Five of the six union leaders accused of alleged criminal activity during nationwide garment worker strikes and demonstrations in December and January are now under judicial supervision after two more of the group appeared before the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday. ...

Following a two-hour low-speed boat chase down the Mekong River in Kandal province early Thursday morning, some 100 angry villagers led by a local opposition official detained five Vietnamese nationals they say have been using illegal fishing techniques for the past three months. ...

An Italian man was among five people arrested in Sihanoukville on Tuesday afternoon for running an illegal gambling website, officials said Wednesday. ...

The manager of a recruitment firm in Kampong Speu province was arrested this week for allegedly duping 50 workers out of $150 each on the unfulfilled promise of getting them work in Thailand. ...

Thousands of employees at Grand Twins International, Cambodia’s only publicly listed garment factory, will be back at the assembly line today after nearly two weeks on strike, accepting a court order to return to work. Workers will follow the order the Phnom Penh Municipal Court issued ...

A report from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has decried the killing of journalists with no consequences, listing Cambodia as one of several countries where members of the press have been killed since 2004 “with complete impunity”. From 2004 to 2013, 370 journalists ...

Nine Nigerian nationals arrested by police in Phnom Penh on Sunday night for possession and distribution of crystal methamphetamine were in Cambodia without passports or valid visas, an anti-drug police chief said. ...

Six sawmills in Preah Vihear province suspected of processing illegal timber were raided on Monday by police, military police and Forestry Administration officers who confiscated an undisclosed amount of luxury-grade wood product during their searches, an official said. ...

A man who claims to be hiding from authorities in the jungle after being linked to the Khmer National Liberation Front (KNLF), a dissident political group that saw 10 of its members charged with plotting to incite violence on Saturday, said Tuesday he was seeking ...

The Kampong Cham Provincial Court yesterday ordered that five workers who were arrested during a violent protest at Juhui Footwear on Saturday be held in prison while charges against them are investigated. Two of them, Khun Sokhom and Mon Sarem, officials from the Coalition of Cambodian ...

Three Cambodian men arrested in Thailand last week were returned to Preah Vihear province on Monday and claim they were tortured by the Thai military before being released, according to a military colonel in the area who provided a video of the men’s accounts. According ...

In spite of international laws and Cambodia’s own legal code, pre-trial detention in the country is becoming more prevalent among child offenders than adults, according to data compiled by a trial monitoring project. The notes are compiled from trial monitoring of 2,558 cases from 2009 ...