Social development

Ministry of Interior officials announced yesterday that three more villagers accused of involvement in a “secessionist plot” in Kratie province turned themselves in and confessed their guilt on Saturday, taking advantage of the prime minister’s offer of immunity for those who agree to act as ...

“I trust the Cambodian doctors with a simple problem. But if it’s a serious illness, and I need an operation or something, I don’t really trust them,” said Ly Molina, 31, a businesswoman from Phnom Penh. Ms. Molina spoke as she waited for a bus to ...

Villagers from Svay Rieng province’s Krasaing commune have vowed to continue their protests to preserve a patch of community forest earmarked for clearing, despite receiving an official warning yesterday. Residents said it would affect over 2,700 people. ...

The Cambodian government donated $1 million to Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospitals on July 18, said Minister of Health Mam Bunheng. The donation came to the free outpatient medical institution as it’s facing a budget shortfall.   ...

As questions linger over the fate of the independent Beehive Radio station in the wake of its owner’s arrest, a government official yesterday insisted there were no plans to stop it from broadcasting, despite its often critical stance toward the ruling party. “No plan to shut ...

Three years after authorities demolished the last houses in Phnom Penh’s Group 78 community, evictees relocated to the outskirts of the capital are still struggling, the Housing Rights Task Force said yesterday. More than 200 members of the Group 78 community gathered close to the site ...

Families living along a planned national train route in Poipet town were told they have 10 days to vacate their properties or be forcibly evicted, residents and NGOs said yesterday. Eang Vuthy, Development Watch Program Manager of Equitable Cambodia, said an eviction notice from the Poipet ...

A day before Prime Minister Hun Sen publicly called for the arrest of Mam Sonando, the Beehive Radio station director hosted a fiery broadcast from The Hague, where lawyers were trying to launch a case against the premier in the International Criminal Court. Just under three ...

Beehive radio station director and accused “secessionist” Mam Sonando was sent to Prey Sar prison yesterday, where he will be detained until his trial on formal criminal charges including insurrection, a conviction that alone could result in up to 15 years behind bars. After two and ...

After two hours of questioning, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday sent independent radio station owner Mam Sonando to Prey Sar prison for pretrial detention, where he will await a hearing on allegations that he tried to foment a secessionist movement in Kratie province. As Mr. Sonando was being questioned, ...

The US-based Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called on the government to release Beehive Radio owner Mam Sonando and drop all secessionist charges against him. Mam Sonando, 70, was arrested Sunday in Phnom Penh and has been charged with crimes related to sedition, for allegedly running ...

A “public morality” clause in the draft ASEAN Declaration on Human Rights threatens the most basic rights of women and sexual minorities and should be scrapped, a coalition of women’s groups said in a statement released yesterday. Civil society groups met with foreign ministers at the ...

Five women from the Boeng Kak lake community met with the U.S. ambassador-at-large for women’s affairs on Saturday in Siem Reap City, asking the U.S. to intervene in their case and put pressure on the Cambodian government to stop violence against women. Meeting on the sidelines ...

Mam Sonando, beleaguered owner of the independent Beehive Radio station, was arrested at his Phnom Penh home yesterday morning on a raft of charges relating to a so-called secessionist movement that authorities supposedly disbanded in Kratie earlier this year. More than a dozen plainclothes and uniformed ...

The US ambassador at large for Global Women’s Issues – an office in the US State Department – met with five of the Boeung Kak lake female activists on Saturday in a sidelines meeting of a Lower Mekong gender policy dialogue. “It was a full ...

Police in the capital yesterday arrested the alleged leader of a “secessionist plot”, Beehive Radio station director Mam Sonando, who had already been abroad for two months when hundreds of security personnel stormed a Kratie province village in May. Khieu Sopheak, a spokesman for the Ministry ...

Siem Reap City – Four women evicted from the Boeng Kak lake community and released from jail last month arrived here Friday in an attempt to meet Melanne Verveer, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for women’s affairs, who is part of a delegation visiting the country with ...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday postponed the first hearing in a long-running land dispute between dozens of villagers from Chikor Leu commune and sugar companies believed to be partly owned by ruling-party senator Ly Yong Phat. ...

Cambodia and Vietnam’s border shuffle in Kampong Cham won’t involve ceding the two previously discussed villages to Vietnam, a government official said yesterday, but it will include farmland meant to compensate Vietnam for the ethnic Khmer villages on what is believed to be the Vietnamese ...

A second police official in Ratanakkiri province has been suspended on suspicion that he demanded money from villagers so that their names could be included on a list of people eligible for land titles as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s new titling program, police ...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Phnom Penh today for diplomatic and business talks with China and ASEAN’s 10 member states, but rights groups and opposition parties are counting on the state of human rights in Cambodia to be a top priority as ...

Less than two weeks after being released from prison, the 13 women convicted in May for protesting evictions at Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community staged their first public action yesterday. The women, joined by about as many neighbors, submitted petitions to the Australian, French, U.K. and ...

A local police official in Ratanakkiri province has been suspended for demanding money from villagers before adding their names to a list of people eligible for Prime Minister Hun Sen’s new land-titling program, police and villagers said yesterday. A total of 1,100 student volunteers are being ...

As the ASEAN summit turns Phnom Penh into a buzz of diplomatic activity, the chance to send a well-timed message has not been lost on the local community. Fifteen representatives of the evicted families of Borei Keila yesterday filed a petition asking US Secretary of State ...