Ethnic minorities and indigenous people

Indigenous villagers in Mondolkiri province say relevant authorities that are supposed to crack down on forestry crimes instead collude with logging companies and powerful businessmen, allowing them cut down trees. That has put their forest tribal traditions and livelihoods, which are dependent on forests, in ...

Hidden at the end of a pathway that breaks off from Mao Tse Tung Boulevard in Phnom Penh is a temple of a different kind, where seances are sacrosant and French writer Victor Hugo – author of Les Miserables – is considered a saint. Worshippers there practise Caodaism, ...

Phnom Penh City Hall on Monday banned Wat Samakki Raingsey from hosting a public forum on Wednesday to mark the 65th anniversary of the official granting of Kampuchea Krom to the State of Vietnam. The Khmer Kampuchea Krom Community (KKKC), which advocates for the ethnic minority ...

Prey Lang is one of Cambodia’s few remaining large forests, covering approximately 3,600 square kilometers across four northern provinces. The forest is home to about 200,000 mostly indigenous people, who depend on it for their livelihoods, according to the Prey Lang Community Network. But, the ...

Members of the Kuoy ethnic group captured two loggers and seized two chainsaws on Saturday, accusing the alleged loggers of felling resin trees illegally at Prey Preah Rokar community forest in Preah Vihear. ...

Cambodian officials say they have not yet confirmed whether they will accept a request from Australia to receive rejected immigrants. But they do say the request is moving forward. The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding over the transfer of immigrants in April, but a ...

A representative of villagers involved in a land dispute in Mondolkiri province appealed to the government Tuesday to address their displacement after their shelters were destroyed by police and soldiers in a forced eviction Monday. Chan Rithy stood outside the National Assembly in Phnom Penh on ...

When 200 villagers from Kratie province walked into Samakki Raingsey pagoda seeking safety and shelter early this month, they weren’t the first to do so. The villagers, whose homes in Snuol district had been torched by authorities just days earlier, were walking a well-trodden path—a path ...

A Cambodian delegation to the United Nations last week used the stage to shame the World Bank’s financial arm for failing to adequately monitor investments in a Vietnamese rubber giant accused of illegal logging, forced evictions and sexual harassment. Representing 17 indigenous communities in Ratanakkiri that ...

A group representing Cambodia’s indigenous communities traveled to New York this week, meeting with UN officials and other minority groups from 70 countries. Cambodia’s minorities face a host of problems, particularly as they try to maintain a way of life that relies on traditions and the ...

Sacred burial grounds and community forests should be granted more protection under a new government proclamation issued this month, but rights groups and land-grab victims are wary that, without proper enforcement, it will amount to little in practice. An interministerial proclamation, or prakas, signed by ...

Approximately 2,000 Chinese businesspeople and tourists have crossed the Vietnamese border into Cambodia these days to escape anti-China riots in Vietnam, a senior Cambodian official said Tuesday. “Some 2,000 Chinese nationals have fled Vietnam to Cambodia,” Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng told reporters. ...

Cambodia’s strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen has confirmed his impoverished country will accept refugees from Australia in a controversial agreement condemned by human rights and refugee advocates. In his first public comments on the agreement, Mr Hun Sen said Cambodia will be “heart-felt and generous towards ...

A group of 20 ethnic minority Chong villagers in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley blocked the road Friday to prevent a group of Chinese engineers from reaching the site of a controversial proposed dam. A number of Chong villagers have been intermittently camping near the road ...

Chen Qun squinted into the morning sunlight as she walked out of the customs and immigration office in Bavet, a small border town that serves as one of the main gateways for land travel between Cambodia and Vietnam. “I have no friends in Sviey Rieng so ...

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 ...

A forestry official with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) who is usually tight-lipped acknowledged last week that his agency has struggled to combat illegal logging, blaming a shortage of manpower and entrenched opportunistic logging by villagers – explanations that were laughed off ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 2012 ban on the allocation of economic land concessions was supposed to halt the unpopular practice of turning over large swaths of property to developers. And going by the numbers last year, it worked. But in the vacuum, according to local rights ...

Cambodian authorities have charged nearly half as many villagers in land dispute cases in the first three months of this year as they did in all of 2013, a local rights group said Thursday, adding that most of the rows stemmed from government-granted land concessions. Following ...

A World Bank-supported rubber company accused of land grabs has suspended some of its projects, as an investigation by the bank continues. The Hoang Anh Gia Lai company, which received support from the bank’s International Finance Corporation, said in a decision following an April 2 ...

The Phnong ethnic minority in Mondulkiri province have heard the promises of development before. With increasing investment and the selling off of the region’s forests will come new roads and schools, they are told. But people in this ancient community, tired of seeing their sacred forests handed ...

A meeting at the Ministry of Mines and Energy on Friday about plans for a controversial hydropower dam in Koh Kong province failed to assuage fears among those trying to stop the project that construction had already been approved. During Friday’s meeting, officials from the ministry ...

Amnesty International on Friday lambasted a pending deal that would see people seeking asylum in Australia to be resettled in Cambodia. “Australia should be ending its offshore processing and detention of asylum seekers, not looking to outsource its refugee responsibilities to another, much poorer country,” ...

Nearly 200 people from 25 different communities converged on the Mondolkiri Provincial Hall Monday to file complaints and petitions calling for an end to illegal logging and environmental degradation. The action comes two days after armed commune police blocked 16 rights workers and journalists from visiting ...