Law and judiciary
Cambodia approves law on sending workers to Qatar
Cambodian workers are expected to arrive in Qatar soon as the southeast Asian country’s national assembly has approved a draft law to send workers to the Gulf state. According to The Phnom Penh Post, the house approved the draft law recently after the two ...
Former anti-drug czar’s appeal begins
Disgraced anti-drug czar Moek Dara’s appeal against his life sentence for convictions in 25 separate cases of bribery and masterminding a criminal enterprise began yesterday morning in Phnom Penh. Co-accused, former Ministry of Interior anti-drug police department chief Chea Leng also appeared at the Court of ...
B Kak protesters ask women's minister to retract comments
Dozens of women and children from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood demonstrated in front of the Ministry of Woman’s Affairs yesterday to demand that the minister recant her claim that they had attacked police during a June 27 protest in which one of the women ...
Land row trial delayed
Four villagers accused of masterminding the theft and intentional damage of property belonging to Cheat Aphiwat Co Ltd in a land dispute will have another month to prepare for trial after right groups Adhoc garnered them a delay yesterday. A village chief and three other villagers ...
Int'l rights groups stand behind Chan Soveth
International human rights groups continued to rally around the local rights worker Chan Soveth on Friday, two days after it emerged that the Adhoc staff member summoned by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on charges of aiding an unnamed perpetrator with an unidentified crime. In a ...
Groups Rally Behind Adhoc Aid Rights Worker
A day after well-known human rights worker Chan Soveth was summoned by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court over charges of aiding an unnamed perpetrator in an unnamed crime, human rights groups issued a statement branding the charged as politically-motivated and intended to intimidate government critics. “We ...
NGOs give support to summonsed worker
Charges against outspoken Adhoc head of monitoring Chan Soveth are baseless, politically motivated and threaten to undermine human rights work in Cambodia, a coalition of NGOs said yesterday. Soveth, who has been summonsed to court on August 24 over the vague charge of assisting “specific perpetrators”, ...
Hundreds of Preah Sihanouk Families Forced From Homes
More than 100 families in Preah Sihanouk province were forcefully removed from their homes yesterday morning by at least 100 armed police officers who dispersed the crowd by firing shots into the air from AK-47 rifles and spraying villagers with water cannons, accoring to provincial ...
Arrested Land Officials Now Free on Bail
Four Land Management Ministry officials charged with corruption last week were released on bail yesterday, less than five days after arriving at Prey Sar prison for detention ahead of trial, officials said. Srung Leang, director of the prison’s center no. 1, said he received the written release order ...
Adhoc Rights Worker Charged With Aiding 'Perpetrator'
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has summoned Chan Soveth, a long-serving senior investigator at rights group Adhoc, over charges of aiding an unnamed perpetrator in Phnom Penh earlier this year, according to a copy of the citation obtained yesterday. Dated Aug. 9 and sent to Adhoc’s ...
Bail granted for disgraced officials
Four officials from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction arrested last week on bribery charges involving millions of dollars would be freed on bail in the next few days, officials said yesterday. Kuy Bunson, director of the Ministry of Interior’s prisons department, said he had ...
Senator Kok An's Case Back in
The Appeal Court yesterday began hearing now-incarcerated former Anco Brothers deputy general director Heng Chheang’s appeal against Senator Kok An’s requested Phnom Penh Municipal Court injunction over his property. Chheang, and his wife, Tep Kolap, former Phnom Penh International University director, were convicted and sentenced to ...
44 garment factory Workers Hurt in Road Traffic Accident
Forty-four garment factory workers were injured in a traffic accident yesterday morning in Svay Rieng province as they traveled to work in the back of an open truck, police said. The workers were riding in the truck when it overturned after colliding with a tractor-trailer on ...
Campaign spending in NGOs' sight
A consortium of election NGOs had banded together in a bid to push through a Campaign Finance Law that would put a ceiling on political party campaign spending ahead of next year’s national elections, representatives said yesterday. The NGO Working Group on Political Finance has embarked ...
S'ville Families Get New Court Eviction Order
More than 100 families who had their evictions delayed on Thursday in observance of a nationally broadcast speech by Prime Minister Hun Sen have once again been ordered to move out, according to local officials. Provincial governor Sboang Sarath said yesterday that the provincial court had ...
Land Ministry Officials Charged With Corruption
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has charged four senior officials at the Ministry of of Land Management with corruption and placed them in pretrial detention at Prey Sar prison on Thursday evening, officials said. On Monday, Sa Reth Boramy, deputy director of the ministry’s department of land ...
With No Faith In Courts, Embattled Turn to Prayer
Clutching bunches of incense, mouths moving in tandem, those gathered before the Preah Ang Dang Keu Shrine on Sisowath Boulevard late last month migth have passed for any group of supplicants save for a notable exception: The prayer was aimed at the judiciary. When supporters of ...
Rights Groups File Lawsuit Over Land Meeting Breakup
Two local human rights groups filed lawsuits yesterday at the Ratanakiri Provincial Court accusing commune and village officials of defamation and intimidation after they disrupted land-rights training session last month. On July 26, a group of armed officials stopped Adhoc and the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) ...
Land officials rounded up in ACU bust
Four officials from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction accused of land dispute-related corruption were arrested on Monday by the Anti-Corruption Unit. An official who declined to be named told the Post yesterday that Sa Reth Boramy, deputy general director of General Department ...
Families cling to hope for land
Representatives of 44 families embroiled in a violent land dispute in Banteay Meanchey province say they are living like squatters and haven’t been granted long-promised property in the area. Kao Ty, a defence lawyer for the families, said that his clients are among the more than ...
Calls Mount for the Release of Beehive Radio Station Owner
A trio of international NGOs representing lawyers and journalists added their voice last week to the mounting calls for the government to release radio station owner Mam Sonando and drop all charges against him “immediately and unconditionally.” Authorities arrested Mr. Sonando, owner of the independent Beehive ...
Villagers in Sihanoukville Ordered off Disputed Land
The Preah Sihanouk Provincial Court has ordered villagers living on disputed land in Sihanoukville to leave the area by Thursday, according to a statement released by th the court yesterday. “We wish to inform people living in Muoy commune’s Phuom Bei village that on August 9, ...
Border Management Technology Advances in Cambodia and Vietnam
Using techincal solutions developed by INTERPOL, Cambodia and Vietnam can now instantly conduct real time searches of INTERPOL’s global databases. The joint European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian nations (ASEAN) “Enhanced exchange of information between INTERPOL National Central Bureaus (NCBs) in the ...
Sonando's Lawyer Rejects Claims for Detention
In a 10-page filing, the lawyer for independent radio station owner Mam Sonando yesterday urged the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to release his 71-year-old client on bail, arguing that he is no flight risk and the legal arguments for keeping him are flimsy. But while ...