Civil society

When an overloaded and illegally built storage level at the Wing Star Shoes factory in Kampong Speu province collapsed last May 16, officials went into damage control, promising to compensate victims using a relatively new state fund. But one year after teenager Kim Dany and co-worker ...

Six months after the government announced that bank accounts for all civil servants would put an end to late salaries and rampant graft, secondary school teachers in Prey Veng say they are owed long overdue payments. In addition to their regular salary, which they already received, ...

A special committee set up in March to settle a long-running land dispute between 52 families in Kompong Chhnang province and the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem has finished its work, leaving 17 families without a deal. Deputy provincial governor Dork Sothea, who ...

A technical error caused 57 teachers in Oddar Meanchey province to be shortchanged when collecting overtime salaries, said an education official who promised the problem will be rectified by the end of May. A teachers’ union on Monday asked the Ministry of Education to address some ...

The U.N.’s special rapporteur on freedom of assembly and association, Maina Kiai, has sent his third thematic report to the U.N. Human Rights Council following trips to various countries, including a three-day visit to Cambodia in February. The report focuses on groups that Mr. Kiai, a ...

TV news viewers in Cambodia are fed a steady diet of praise for the government and top officials. Whether they’re giving speeches that go on for hours, cutting a ribbon at a new development project, or shaking hands with foreign dignitaries, government leaders are presented ...

International observers are calling on the Cambodian government to ensure the safety of a human rights worker who has allegedly received death threats from a company affiliated with family members of Prime Minister Hun Sen. ...

Chevron’s Caltex gas stations are potentially losing hundreds of thousands of dollars per day in Cambodia, striking employees say. Workers say Caltex, a subsidiary of US-based multinational Chevron, sells between 5,000 to 10,000 liters per station per day, putting its losses between $350,000 to $700,000 ...

Cambodian workers for the U.S.- owned Caltex petrol stations in Phnom Penh continued their strike for higher wages Wednesday after wage negotiations late Tuesday failed to reach any agreement. Strike leader Sar Mora, president of the Cambodian Food and Service Workers Federation, said some 300 Caltex ...

Sexual assault and the annihilation of sacred graveyards are among the many claims levelled at Vietnamese Rubber giant Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) by villagers in Ratanakkiri province, a report by the World Bank’s investment arm reveals. In February, 17 indigenous communities that accused HAGL of ...

The Ministry of Economy and Finance on Monday announced the release of standardised bidding forms for public contracts, a measure it said would increase transparency and accountability, though the opposition and Transparency International Cambodia offered more cautious assessments yesterday. According to a state media announcement, the ...

A teachers’ union has accused education officials in Oddar Meanchey province’s Anlong Veng district of stealing 21 million riel, or about $5,200, that had been slated as overtime payments for primary school teachers. In a letter sent to the Education Ministry on Monday, the Cambodia Independent ...

Cambodia is nearing a deal that would open a pipeline of workers to Saudi Arabia, a country where Southeast Asian migrants have in the past been abused and even executed for crimes that include “sorcery”. Following a meeting in Hanoi last week with Saudi Ambassador Salah ...

About 50 Cambodian youths were prevented by city security personnel from performing a peace march in the capital on Tuesday. The youth, from the Working Group for Peace, had hoped to hold a non-violent march near Wat Phnom, a city landmark, to the Royal Palace, ...

A worker with the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) has been intimidated and received death threats while trying to document the plight of three families involved in a bitter land dispute with a developer in the country’s capital, according to the center. The worker, Vann ...

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has labeled the trial of two teenagers arrested during the lethal suppression of a garment sector strike in November 12 as “deeply flawed” and said that the pair should be spared prison sentences. In a statement Sunday, the rights organization claims that ...

The government has issued a total of 3.4 million land titles across the country, 500,000 of them since a renewed push personally orchestrated by Prime Minister Hun Sen, according to new figures released by the Land Management Ministry. In a notice posted to its website Friday, ...

More than 200 striking workers at Cambodia’s largest brewer, Cambrew Ltd., resumed work on Saturday after the company agreed to lift their monthly salary from $120 to $150 as they had been demanding. The workers at the company, which produces Angkor beer and Black Panther stout, ...

The Council of Ministers on Friday passed a sub-decree on the management of adult entertainment clubs and a draft of a new national housing policy to promote home ownership, a cabinet official said. The new Sub-Decree on Management of Adult Entertainment Places, consisting of 25 articles, ...

A land dispute in the capital’s Tuol Kork district escalated further on Friday when a group of “gangsters” allegedly threatened the life of a human rights worker taking video footage for a documentary on the conflict. “Six men pushed me off the site. One screamed: ‘I ...

Customs officials over the weekend said they will shed no further light on Friday’s massive haul of three tons of illegal elephant ivory at Sihanoukville Autonomous Port—Cambodia’s biggest-ever ivory seizure—until investigations are complete and a case can be sent to court. A scan on containers that ...

More than 200 villagers from three communes in Svay Rieng province on Saturday protested against a proposal to build a huge irrigation canal through their land, a local official said Sunday. The planned canal would stretch across Kraol Kor, Svay Yea and Chhoeuteal communes in Svay ...

Police arrested another three union representatives on Friday for allegedly inciting garment workers to strike and protest in front of their factory over the past few weeks, this time in Kandal province. It follows the arrest last week of six representatives of another union ahead of ...

Tax revenue increased 9.5 percent to $353.46 million in the first quarter of the year, compared to the same period last year, according to a statement released Friday by the Ministry of Finance’s general department of taxation. Kong Vibol, general director of the taxation department, said ...