Law and judiciary

Developing the Don Sahong dam on the Hou Sahong channel of the Mekong River in Champassak province does not breach the 1995 Mekong Agreement, a senior government official has told local media. Deputy Minister of Energy and Mines, Mr Viraphonh Viravong, made the comment on Thursday, ...

An increasing number of Cambodians have access to the Internet due to ownership of smartphones, tablets and the expansion of wireless broadband to rural areas of Cambodia, but access does not mean freedom from restrictions, according to a new report by New York-based Freedom House. In ...

Ruling party lawmakers yesterday unanimously voted to fill each of the National Assembly’s nine commissions with their own members. The vote was made without the presence of the opposition, which has been boycotting parliament since its opening late last month. Among the five Cambodian People’s Party members ...

Floods have submerged a prison in northwestern Banteay Meanchey province on Thursday, forcing the authorities to evacuate all 842 prisoners to detention centers in other provinces. “The prison is badly inundated and we are moving the prisoners to prisons in neighboring provinces,” Phin Sophal, chief of ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday released four of the six men who were charged with assault following violent clashes between security forces, protesters and angry commuters in Phnom Penh last month, and intends to release the remaining two men today, a rights worker ...

Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) chief Om Yentieng on Wednesday told donor countries to keep their noses out of how the institution goes about its work while at the same time informing the public that he was powerless to stop the courts from dropping corruption cases. In a ...

Three thousand riot police officers yesterday received certificates of appreciation for their post-election work, which included “controlling the escalation” at the Kbal Thnal overpass last month, where one man was killed and at least nine injured by police who fired live ammunition at unarmed rioters. Interior ...

Eight unionists charged with incitement after a strike at Kampong Speu province’s Sabrina Garment factory will remain in custody after the Supreme Court yesterday denied their request for bail. Presiding Judge Cheum Rithy yesterday said the court is nearly finished questioning witnesses, and that the ...

Phnom Penh City Hall has turned down two requests by non-governmental groups to hold rallies and marches to mark both International Teachers’ Day and the international day for housing rights. Housing Rights Task Force (HRTF), a local NGO, was denied permission to organize a rally at ...

The Court of Appeal will hear the case of former Bavet City governor Chhouk Bundith, who was convicted for shooting and injuring three garment workers but remains at large, at the end of this month, a court official said Wednesday. Although the Svay Rieng Pro­vincial Court ...

One of the four suspects who have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the theft of $2.3 million from Canadia Bank was the head of the bank’s credit section during the time that the embezzlement scheme was carried out, according to a senior adviser ...

Senior CPP members selected nominees for the National Assembly’s nine permanent committees behind closed doors on Tuesday, while the opposition CNRP, which has continued to boycott the Assembly over July’s disputed election, urged some of Cambodia’s foreign donors to immediately sever ties with the government ...

Women’s Affairs Minister Ing Kantha Phavi on Tuesday defended the government’s policies on promoting gender equality and preventing discrimination against women, but conceded that challenges remain in achieving principles set out in the U.N.’s convention to stop discrimination against women. Speaking in Geneva to the U.N. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday heard the case of two port workers and a military police officer charged with stealing more than 8,000 articles of clothing from a shipping container while it was being driven to the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port. The three suspects—Sorn ...

A new set of prakases tacked onto a law that regulates overseas employment recruitment agencies is a “step in the right direction” towards protecting some of Cambodia’s most vulnerable citizens from scams and abuse, local and international NGOs said yesterday. But some remain unconvinced that the ...

Four representatives of villagers locked in a land dispute with the well-connected KDC company have filed a complaint with the Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court after they received death threats. “The anonymous letter was a threat against our lives,” said Reach Seima, one of the representatives, adding ...

Minister of Interior Sar Kheng sent a letter to the National Police last week asking it to step up its search for Chhouk Bandith, the former Bavet town governor convicted of shooting three garment workers at a factory protest last year. Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak ...

Anti-logging activists wrote to the United Nations yesterday to call for the monitoring of a lawsuit in which they accuse hundreds of officials in Kampong Speu province’s Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary of illegal deforestation. The Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organization (NRWPO) listed 241 officials it ...

A man suspected of robbing and shooting two foreign nationals late last month was shot four times on Monday night during a shootout with police before being taken into custody. Police also apprehended a second, uninjured suspect after the shootout. Chea Sovann, 32, and Sa Ravan, ...

King Norodom Sihamoni has signed off on a Royal Decree terminating the positions of every ministry-level adviser in the government except for those of Prime Minister Hun Sen in order to allow recently appointed officials to appoint new advisers. The decree, signed October 1 and obtained ...

Prisons in Banteay Meanchey and Battambang province have been seriously affected by flooding but have not yet been evacuated, according to local rights groups and prison officials. A clogged sewage system has plagued Battambang’s provincial prison, according to Bun Sorn, but extra pumps have alleviated ...

The former manager of Canadia Bank’s credit section has admitted to stealing $2.3 million from the bank’s accounts, the suspect’s lawyer said Tuesday, in what is one of the largest embezzlement schemes ever undertaken in Cambodia’s nascent banking industry. The testimony from Yeth So­pheaktra, 30, to ...

Rights groups on Monday shared their concerns about the treatment of women in Cambodia with member states of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in Geneva. Cambodia last updated the committee—which meets three times a year to assess how member states ...

Police have yet to identify any suspects in a pair of vicious robbery-shootings in Phnom Penh late last month that left an American expatriate and a Japanese tourist hospitalized with gunshot wounds, police said Monday. At about 7 p.m. on September 27, American construction consultant Maurice ...