Civil society

Thirty families uprooted by Cambodia’s railway rehabilitation project have filed a complaint with Australia’s highest human rights body, alleging rights abuses as a result of the partially AusAid-funded rail project. The complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission was made on behalf of the families by NGOs Equitable Cambodia and Inclusive ...

Hundreds of families from more than a dozen communities joined local human rights groups yesterday as they rallied outside the National Assembly for World Habitat Day, calling for an end to forced land evictions in Phnom Penh. Among those protesting were residents from the Boeng ...

A motodop at the center of the high-profile case against imprisoned Boeung Kak lake villager Yorm Bopha has returned to work after receiving treatment for head injuries, he said yesterday. Supporters of Nget Chet, 28, said during demonstrations last month that the motodop had been nearly brain damaged during an ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen lashed out at the UN’s human rights envoy to Cambodia yesterday, saying Surya Subedi’s latest report skewed too heavily toward the opposition and suggested his talents might be better employed elsewhere.   While the premier never mentioned the Nepalese national and Leeds ...

Activist monk Luon Sovath has been named the recipient of this year’s Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders for his work promoting villagers’ land claims and publicising rights abuses. A familiar figure at protests in Cambodia, including the widely decried May trial of the Boeung Kak 13, ...

Despite the government embarking on a nationwide land-titling program, there is still little space for communities affected by economic land concessions to voice their concerns with the government, members of civil society said at a conference in Phnom Penh yesterday. “We’ve observed that there is limited ...

The recent deluge of comments critical toward the Cambodian government is an attempt to sow political chaos, a senior official said yesterday. At a press conference held at the Council of Ministers, Keo Remy, deputy chairman of the Press and Quick Reaction Unit, blasted several individuals ...

Officials yesterday confirmed that the Cambodian government will receive a majority of the revenue share from Chevron’s offshore Block A oil permit area near Sihanoukville in the Gulf of Thailand. The government expects to issue the American oil giant a production permit licence by the ...

Anti-eviction activists from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak and Borei Keila neighborhoods, dressed as white doves, protested yesterday in front of the Council for the Development of Cambodia, where the country’s donors were meeting with top government officials to discuss the country’s reform targets. Donning paper helmets ...

While protesters demonstrated outside, urging land and human-rights reform, members of the donor community met with the government yesterday at the Council for the Development of Cambodia in Phnom Penh to sign off on a series of development targets that bore only a faint resemblance to those ...

Economic land concessions (ELCs) benefit only a minority, the human rights consequences of the concessions are stark, and Cambodia’s sustainable economic development is threatened by the practice. U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi told the Human Rights Council in Geneva yesterday. Mr. Subedi cited uneven access to ...

More than 60 people yesterday rallied at the National Assembly, the UN Human Rights Office, the Danish Embassy and the German Embassy as part of a petition campaign to seek the release of two jailed women from the Boeung Kak and Borei Keila communities. Villagers and ...

Sao Sareoun and Ly Chanary, the two land-rights activists arrested outside the three-hour trial of 13 women from Boeung Kak lake in May, hope an easing of bail conditions is a sign authorities are planning to drop charges against them. The Court of Appeal yesterday ruled ...

Despite the recent spate of high-profile arrests and deportations, analysts, attorneys and civil society groups are divided on whether the Kingdom is finally beginning to live down its reputation as a haven for the fugitives and criminals who have long been drawn to the country ...

A coalition of women’s groups have lashed out at Malaysia for continuing to endorse a “public morality” clause in the draft ASEAN Declaration on Human Rights. They claim the clause is subjective and discriminates against women and sexual minorities and should be ditched. Currently being drafted by ...

Cambodians were among anti-Xayaburi dam protesters who demonstrated outside Thai Parliament in Bangkok yesterday, urging Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to halt construction and tear up an agreement to buy the proposed dam’s power. A group of Cambodians travelled to Bangkok especially to raise their concerns about ...

Heavy machinery is pumping millions of tonnes of sand from the river into the Boeung Tumpun lake in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The area is home to some 2000 families and rumours suggest they will be evicted to develop the land once the lake is filled. The ...

International human rights groups added their voices to the chorus of criticism over the detention of two female anti-eviction activists from the Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities, accusing the court of failing to honor fair trial standards. In a statement issued late Thursday, Amnesty International, ...

Fifty Boeng Kak and Borei Keila residents rallied outside the Ministry of Justice yesterday and submitted a petition demanding the release of two anti-eviction activists they say have been jailed on trumped-up charges. Four representatives from the two groups were allowed to enter the ministry yesterday, ...

Free of the police resistance that thwarted their march the previous day, about 65 Borei Keila and Boeung Kak community supporters marched to the Ministry of Justice yesterday in another effort to have land dispute activists Tim Sakmony and Yorm Bopha freed from pre-trial detention ...

Imprisoned Yorm Bopha has either been unjustly targeted for her role in Boeung Kak lake eviction protests or is responsible for the vicious beating of two motodops, depending on which protesters’ chants were true yesterday. It was land evictees versus motodops in the capital as two ...

Police in Phnom Penh blocked all attempts by anti-eviction protesters to march out of the city’s Boeng Kak community yesterday, but made no attempt to stop a counter-demonstration against the marchers by a little-known association of tuk-tuk and motorcycle-taxi drivers. About 150 residents of the Boeng ...

Borei Keila protesters, including many who live in squalor under staircases at the site, have already been compensated for losing their homes and have no right to demand more, Suy Sophan, the owner of developer Phan Imex, told the Post yesterday. About 200 supporters from the ...

The Phnom Penh man who filed a complaint against a woman deeply involved in the Boeng Kak community’s anti-eviction protests called a press conference on Friday to insist that his dispute with the woman, which led to her arrest last week, was a personal matter ...