Civil society

More than 55,000 people have joined an online petition set up by a pair of French nongovernment groups urging the European Union (E.U.) to immediately launch an investigation into local sugar plantations accused of illegally evicting hundreds of Cambodian families. At the center of the dispute ...

A two-day meeting between union leaders, senior government officials and representatives of the SL Gar­ment Factory failed Tuesday to reach a solution for factory workers, who have been on strike since early August and on Monday demonstrated in front of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Phnom ...

Phnom Penh Municipality will provide land titles to 33 more families living in the city’s Boeng Kak neighborhood, a municipal official said Tuesday, roughly a third of those still seeking property rights in the area that has seen some 3,000 forced evictions. “First, we will solve ...

Opposition CNRP lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua last night emerged from a meeting with Phnom Penh City Hall representatives proclaiming that she had the assurance of the Municipal police chief that there would be no roadblocks in or around Phnom Penh during the opposition’s three-day demonstration starting ...

As hundreds of riot police conducted protest suppression drills in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park on Monday morning, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s mansion in the center of the city was the focal point of a demonstration by some 2,000 garment factory workers. Municipal police, along with 16 ...

Forestry Administration officials on Friday confiscated 1,000 pieces of luxury wood on land belonging to a Vietnamese rubber company that has been repeatedly accused of illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, local officials and human rights workers said Sunday. Romash Svat, a representative of some ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has dismissed two complaints submitted by two local human rights groups, Adhoc and the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), against local officials who they alleged had de­famed and intimidated their staff, court officials said Friday. Adhoc filed a complaint against Pheng ...

Cambodia’s largest-ever immunisation program will launch today with the introduction of a new vaccine against rubella and measles, World Health Organization officials said yesterday. The Ministry of Health aims to inoculate more than four million children between the ages of nine months and 15 years before ...

A Cambodian trade unions leader on Saturday called on garment workers not to participate in the opposition party-planned mass demonstration next week against the results of July’s election that handed victory to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling party. “I would like to appeal to all workers ...

More than a dozen journalism and hu­man rights groups have called on Cambodia’s political forces to protect journalists and guarantee citizens’ access to an open and unobstructed press during the current political unrest. In a statement released Wednesday, the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, along with ...

There were ugly scenes on Friday at Phnom Penh’s hill-temple Wat Phnom when district security guards scuffled, shouted abuse and punched a group of mostly women and monks who had gathered to hold a memorial ceremony for Mao Sok Chan—the 29-year-old man shot dead by ...

Kneeling outside a motodop and car battery store on Monivong Boulevard in the capital, a 15-year-old boy spends his days piping acid into batteries with his bare hands. His employer says she has no idea that Cambodia, as well as having an Acid Control Law – ...

Accelerating the mapping and titling of rural farmland should be an “urgent” priority of the government and civil society, particularly when it comes to protecting indigenous peoples’ and women’s rights, Oxfam representatives said yesterday. The remarks followed the release of an EU-funded survey of rural communities’ ...

Two years out from the 2015 Millennium Development Goals’ target of universal access to education, Cambodia remains plagued by school infrastructure shortages, with a scarcity of classrooms and decrepit facilities that threaten students’ safety, NGOs and teachers say. At Slorkram Primary School in Battambang, teachers ...

Riun Pau ran out of food last week. For the 13-year-old and her family, that moment was the culmination of weeks of distress caused by flooding that had already ravaged their Battambang home and farmland. Pau’s neighbours are experiencing similar problems. In Battambang, 67.3 per cent ...

Eight-year-old Sokun* spent almost the first seven years of his life in prison. Unlike other Cambodian children who have the freedom to play and run free, countless hours of his early life were spent in a hot, squalid and teeming cell in the prison where his ...

As flood victims surge to the capital to receive medical treatment, doctors at Phnom Penh’s Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital say they’ve never seen such overcrowding. Parents holding their sick children and infants line the perimeter of the complex, spending up to seven hours crouched on hot ...

The ruling Cambodian People’s Party has reiterated its commitment to carry out electoral reforms ahead of the 2017 poll in an apparent bid to appease key demands of the opposition, civil society and the international community following July’s disputed election. With rare frankness, the party says ...

Dozens of anti-eviction activists on Monday held a rally in Phnom Penh and submitted a petition to the Ministry of Interior, demanding the arrests of Daun Penh district officials they claim conspired to viciously attack them during a peaceful protest at Wat Phnom last month. On ...

A man apprehended by participants at a rally in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park on Sunday after he was spotted carrying a concealed pistol, signed himself into Calmette Hospital by listing his occupation as “Samdech Bodyguard,” in apparent reference to one of the three leaders of ...

A small gathering to mark World Teachers’ Day at Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park briefly descended into chaos Sunday when a crowd of rally-goers wrested a concealed gun from a man working for the Ministry of Information after he forced his way to the front of ...

Protesters, including a band of angry monks, clashed with military and riot police on Thursday in Phnom Penh as authorities tried to prevent a local housing rights group from carrying out a rally against forced evictions. Housing Rights Task Force (HRTF), a coalition of five local ...

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 ...

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 ...