Civil society

With CPP lawmakers expected to pass a highly controversial law regulating NGOs and associations Monday, City Hall said Sunday that it would use “many measures” to ensure that protesters are not able to rally outside the National Assembly. ...

Facing an opposition boycott and a European Union threat over foreign aid, the government plans to vote into law today a controversial draft law restricting NGOs. ...

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on Thursday calling on the Cambodian government to cancel a draft law that would strictly regulate NGOs and associations in the country, warning that its passage could cost Cambodia up to $700 million in development aid. ...

A coalition of Cambodian nongovernmental organizations will stage a peaceful protest on Monday outside parliament in the capital Phnom Penh to oppose proposed legislation that they say will restrict their activities, an official with a prominent domestic rights groups said. ...

The government yesterday confirmed four changes to the controversial NGO law in response to widespread criticism; opponents, however, say the edits are insignificant and the legislation remains a “severe violation” of Cambodia’s constitution. ...

ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) today called on the Cambodian government to abandon its proposed Law on Associations and Non-governmental Organizations (LANGO), arguing that the ruling party has pursued a fundamentally undemocratic course in attempting to secure the passage of a law that threatens ...

A senior government official on Wednesday defended the controversial draft law to regulate NGOs, as members of the government and civil society met in Phnom Penh. ...

CPP lawmakers and officials continued to defend their controversial draft of a proposed law aiming to regulate the country’s non-government groups at a workshop at the National Assembly on Wednesday, despite a boycott from some NGOs and the opposition, which dismissed the event as “rubbish.” ...

Hundreds of opponents to a controversial law to regulate NGOs met in a hotel in Phnom Penh Tuesday, as a campaign against the passage of the legislation continues. Zach Lampell, a legal advisor at the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law, told those gathered that he had ...

NGOs remained united Tuesday in their staunch opposition to a draft law that would force all non-government groups in the country to register with the state, but were split on whether to take up the ruling CPP on its offer for an 11th-hour consultation ahead ...

Private donations to orphanages in Cambodia means the government is struggling to cope with their reform, with lack of transparency and lack of safety checks. Most of Cambodia’s orphanages are financed by private donations from abroad, but no one knows exactly how much money flows ...

Cambodia’s opposition party will boycott a national conference held by parliament to discuss a controversial draft law that would regulate nongovernmental organizations operating in the developing country, because of loopholes in the proposed legislation that would hinder the groups, an opposition lawmaker said Tuesday. ...

Phen Bunthoeun, the NGO director who was arrested and detained overnight by Vietnamese authorities for leading about 40 students to visit a disputed border area in Svay Rieng province on Saturday, admitted Monday that he had gone there to inspect alleged border violations. ...

Around 100 activists, including Buddhist monks, gathered in front of Cambodia’s parliament Monday to demand that lawmakers and the country’s Forestry Administration take action against illegal logging in endangered Prey Lang forest. ...

The international watchdog Frontline Defenders has called on Cambodian authorities to drop a defamation lawsuit against a prominent human rights worker. Ny Chakrya, head of legal assistance for the rights group Adhoc, is facing a suit filed by two court officials in Siem Reap province last ...

A Cambodian NGO director who on Saturday took about 40 of his primary- and high-school students on a trip to a disputed border area in Svay Rieng province was beaten by Vietnamese civilians and imprisoned overnight, officials said Sunday. ...

Warnings from civil society groups that they will urge citizens to vote against any politician who supports the draft law on associations and NGOs have drawn a stern rebuke from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. ...

The human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) Licado and Adhoc both say they will not attend Wednesday’s consultation workshop on the controversial draft Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations (LANGO) hosted by the National Assembly. ...

The National Assembly has announced that members of the public hoping to participate in the consultation regarding Cambodia’s contentious draft Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organisations (LANGO) will have until Tuesday to register. ...

Despite government assurances that the controversial NGO draft law was still undergoing review, committees of the National Assembly said yesterday that the only revisions will be minor corrections to spelling and wording. ...

Despite the deployment of law enforcement officials across the capital in a bid to halt the demonstration, activists yesterday marched as promised to the National Assembly to protest the looming adoption of highly controversial union and NGO laws. Starting at about 8am, hundreds of land activists, ...

NGOs on Monday vowed to press ahead with a protest march through Phnom Penh on Tuesday against a draft law that threatens to rein in the country’s non-government groups and associations despite City Hall’s threat to stop them by “any means.” ...

Pro-democracy and rights groups in Cambodia have launched a three-day demonstration in an attempt to stop the passage of a law to regulate NGOs. The protest is expected to continue Tuesday. Organizers said that if they are not satisfied with the Assembly’s actions, they will ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has repeated that he will stand by the draft law on nongovernmental organizations currently under review by parliament, despite continued opposition by some groups which say the legislation would hinder their work in Cambodia. ...