Social development

Loun Savath, a monk and rights activist who was detained by plain clothes security officials Thursday, was released that night, after he agreed to sign a letter vowing to stop leading and participating in protests. However, he has promised he will not halt his activism. Loun ...

The number of protests over land disputes increased in 2011 as forced resettlement, restrictions on freedom of assembly and the harassment of peaceful protesters continued to tarnish Cambodia’s human rights record, Amnesty International said in its annual report released yesterday. Noting the huge impact of economic ...

Thirteen land protesters who were seized during a demonstration earlier this week were handed heavy prison sentences after a quick court hearing on Thursday, even as two more people were arrested and a monk was facing the threat of defrocking for participating in similar land ...

In the face of increasing economic land concessions and ongoing restrictions on expression, disaffected Cambodians were increasingly taking to the streets with success, Amnesty International representatives said yesterday at the launch of their annual report. Amnesty reported that Cambodians continued to face challenges to their human ...

Thirteen Boeung Kak women, including a 67-year-old, were arrested and forced into police vans and trucks yesterday as about 200 Phnom Penh municipal police and security officers cracked down on a 100-strong demonstration at the site. The group, which included Boeung Kak lake residents, evictees and ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday blamed soaring food prices on fuel prices set by oil cartels like OPEC, appealing to oil-producing countries to pay attention to the connection between food security and energy. Cambodia imports 100 per cent of its oil, and the majority of agriculture ...

Going back on an earlier promise not to make any more public speeches before next month’s commune elections, Prime Minister Hun Sen gave the opening address at a two-day conference on food security and nutrition in Phnom Penh yesterday. At the event, organized by the Council ...

A 50 per cent stunting rate among Cambodian children contributed to lower-skilled labour and slower economic development for the Kingdom, a senior government economist said yesterday at a workshop on food security. Stunted growth as a result of malnutrition led to ineffective learning among children and ...

Villagers detained during a bloody crackdown in Kratie province last week in which a 14-year-old was shot dead have accused security forces of brutal acts of cruelty, including forcing pregnant women to stand naked in the sun for hours. The villagers from Pro Ma village in ...

Female union leaders in the garment industry – where women constitute 90 per cent of the work force – are effective at bargaining for better working conditions, but their voices aren’t being heard in a union landscape dominated by men, a labour expert said yesterday. Veasna ...

One hundred and thirty-five ethnic Kouy families from the Brame, Srae Preang and Bos Tom villages in Preah Vihear’s Tbeng Meanchey district gathered on Saturday and yesterday to protest the Lan Feng Company’s alleged bulldozing of their farmland. ...

After a three-day blockade, soldiers pulled out over the weekend from the Kratie province village where a teenage girl was shot dead last week by government security forces, officials said yesterday. However, human rights workers denied a report by a provincial official that freedom of movement ...

After a three-day blockade, soldiers pulled out over the weekend from the Kratie province village where a teenage girl was shot dead last week by government security forces, officials said yesterday. However, human rights workers denied a report by a provincial official that freedom of ...

The Svay Rieng Provincial Court on Friday questioned three female factory workers who were shot, allegedly by Bavet City Governor Chhouk Bundith, during a protest inside a special economic zone (SEZ) in February, the plaintiffs said. More than 20 union leaders and labor activists also gathered ...

The village in Kratie province where a teenage girl was shot dead by government security forces on Wednesday remained completely sealed off to independent observers on Friday, drawing concerns from human rights workers that the government had imposed a state of martial law in the ...

Kratie city – Soldiers and military police yesterday blocked all access to a village where a 14-year-old girl was shot dead by security forces on Wednesday while the authorities launched a massive operation to evict hundreds of families from the area under a cloak of ...

One of the journalists on the scene when environmentalist Chut Wutty was gunned down last month appeared in a Koh Kong provincial court yesterday to answer questions about the shooting incident, which also led to the death of military police officer In Rattana. According to human ...

Considering the growth potential of US$400-million worth in bilateral trade between the United Kingdom and Cambodia for the past five years, the British Trade and Investment office plans to establish its permanent branch in Phnom Penh. British companies are eyeing investment opportunities in education, construction and ...

Security forces have sealed off a village in eastern Cambodia and denied entry to human rights workers after the fatal shooting of a teenager in the latest violent eviction aimed at clearing land for development. Soldiers said they needed to secure the area around Proma village, ...

Lawyers for the three women injured in a Feb. 20 shooting at a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Svay Rieng province were prevented from visiting the site of the shooting, allegedly on orders from the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC), a lawyer and ...

Mates are more important than anything else for Paul Ouk, an Australian-born and raised ethnic Khmer. “It’s not about the money, it’s about the people,” says Ouk, who owns Me Mates Place, a guesthouse on Street 90 and a restaurant and bar on Street 88 called, ...

Transparency and consultation with civil society will give the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration the status and respect it needs to make a difference in the region, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said on Friday. The AHRD will be presented to foreign ministers in ...

It took angry motorists rather than government officials or police officers to persuade more than 200 protesting villagers to clear road 48 in Koh Kong province yesterday morning after they blocked it for almost 24 hours, a human rights group representative said. The villagers, involved in ...

U.N. human rights envoy to Cambodia Surya Subedi wrapped up his seventh mission to Cambodia on Friday, saying that his own assessments of land concessions confirmed that they are being unfairly granted and leaving many communities out in the cold. Mr. Subedi said that meetings held ...