Human rights

Three of the refugees Australia is holding at a detention center on the South Pacific island nation of Nauru agreed to meet with Cambodian officials who traveled there last week to assess the possibility of resettling some of the asylum seekers in Cambodia, Interior Minister ...

Municipal anti-human trafficking police arrested three suspects in the past two days for allegedly sending at least four Cambodian women to marry men in China over the past year. Municipal anti-human trafficking police chief Keo Thea said one of the four Cambodian women sent to China ...

The presence of dozens of riot police yesterday swiftly ended the first day of Boeung Kak land-rights activist Yorm Bopha’s planned month-long protest in the capital’s Freedom Park. At virtually the same time, Surya Subedi, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, visited a ...

Abuse, discrimination, exploitation and corruption are endemic in Cambodia’s prisons, spurred on by judicial and penal systems “driven by nepotism”, according to a new report from local rights group Licadho. The report, Rights at a Price: Life Inside Cambodia’s Prisons, which was released yesterday, details a ...

Some 50 Daun Penh district security guards and about as many riot police prevented 100 anti-eviction protesters from gathering at Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park on Tuesday after the city deemed the gathering illegal. The protesters were from a number of eviction-hit communities, including the Boeng Kak ...

The International Organisation for Migration has told the Cambodian government it is willing to take part in the resettlement of refugees from Nauru if a number of conditions are met.​ ...

The opposition CNRP plans to screen the banned documentary film “Who Killed Chea Vichea?” this week to mark the 11th anniversary of the Free Trade Union (FTU) leader’s assassination in front of a newspaper stall in Phnom Penh on January 22, 2004. CNRP public affairs director ...

The Phnom Penh municipal government on Monday rejected a request from protesters to stage a one-month demonstration in the city’s Freedom Park for the release of 10 jailed activists and refused to receive their latest petition demanding a solution to their long-running land disputes. About 100 ...

Two weeks after five Montagnard asylum seekers crossed into Ratanakkiri province from Vietnam, the U.N. said Sunday that reports of the arrival of nine more—including three children—added to the situation’s “urgency.” Two ethnic Jarai villagers living in Ratanakkiri said the nine Montagnards—an indigenous group from Vietnam’s ...

A government delegation that traveled to the South Pacific island nation of Nauru last week to study the possibility of resettling in Cambodia some of the refugees Australia is currently holding there will return to Phnom Penh on Monday, a government official said. ...

A Cambodian delegation that arrived in Nauru on Tuesday for high-level meetings to progress a controversial refugee resettlement scheme has toured Australian-run detention centres on the island, according to a rights group. ...

The mayor of Lowell, Massachusetts—which has the second-largest population of Cambodian-Americans in the U.S.—on Friday visited 10 anti-eviction activists inside Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison, emerging to announce that he would lobby the government for their release. Wrapping up a five-day visit to Phnom Penh, Rodney ...

The Thai government yesterday broke its silence on charred remains found 10 days ago alleged to have been two Cambodians burned alive by Thai soldiers, saying no conclusion had been reached. Cambodia’s western neighbour has been slow to release investigative findings about what could prove to ...

Human rights group Adhoc has demanded the release of a couple and their 9-month-old child jailed amid a land dispute in Preah Vihear, calling their arrest a “grave human rights abuse”. ...

The U.N. and an Australian refugee rights group say a delegation of Cambodian officials arrived Monday in the South Pacific island nation of Nauru, where Australia is holding hundreds of asylum seekers and hopes to convince at least some of them to volunteer to be ...

The trial of two Chinese men and three Cambodian women on charges of human trafficking began in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday after they were arrested in May for allegedly brokering marriages between Cambodian women and prospective grooms in China. ...

Thai soldiers admitted to burning alive two men last week who may have been undocumented Cambodians, Battambang military officials said yesterday. Cambodian officers said their Thai counterparts informed them that on the night of January 7, four Cambodians illegally crossed the border with intentions of evading ...

Opposition lawmaker Mu Sochua said a group of 10 convicted anti-eviction activists on hunger strike at Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison were in a weak state during her visit to the facility Monday. ...

Remaining five hill tribe Montagnards emerged from northeast Cambodia’s jungle on Saturday night after hiding for more than seven weeks since illegally entering Cambodia from Vietnam, a senior human rights activist said Sunday. ...

Thirteen hill tribespeople known as  “Montagnards” have left their jungle hideout in Cambodia and will apply for asylum after crossing from Vietnam to flee persecution, it was announced Sunday. The minority group had for more than seven weeks sought refuge in the jungle in Cambodia’s northeastern ...

Anti-human trafficking police on Monday arrested two men at the Phnom Penh International Airport as they attempted to traffic a woman to China to marry a man there, police said Tuesday. Chinese national Xu Xiandai, 30, and Cambodian Heng Seng, 53, were arrested at 7 a.m. ...

The U.N.’s efforts to locate a group of Montagnards hiding in Ratanakkiri province continued to be hindered Monday as the provincial governor was yet again unavailable to meet its delegation, four days after it traveled to the northeastern province. Despite the delegation’s expectation that it would ...

Forty NGOs from around the world have called on the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to begin preliminary examinations into claims that Cambodia’s “ruling elite” were accused of committing crimes against humanity. On October 7, British lawyer Richard Rogers submitted ...

The Cambodian government will allow UN representatives to seek out a group of Montagnards reportedly in hiding in Ratanakkiri province. Interior Minister Sar Kheng gave the green light for UN offices of human rights and refugees to look into the case, where at least 13 Montagnards ...