Human rights

Opposition CNRP lawmaker Eng Chhay Eang says he will visit Phnom Penh’s Prey Speu social affairs center today to investigate its controversial treatment of detainees following the death of a recent charge. ...

Thousands of Cambodians, including Buddhist monks and garment workers, on Wednesday (Dec 10) rallied across the capital calling for respect for human rights and the release of a group of jailed land activists. On Wednesday around 3,000 people massed outside the parliament building in Phnom ...

Staff at the Phnom Penh Municipal Referral Hospital said Tuesday that they had no record of a recent visit from a man who died late last month at the Prey Speu social affairs center, contradicting claims made by a city official. Both a file search by ...

Human rights group (LICADHO) has called for the release of 18 activists who have been wrongfully imprisoned following a recent spate of arrests as Cambodia will celebrate International Human Rights Day on December 10th. In a statement issued today [Monday], the right group also condemns the ...

Hundreds of monks are marching to Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh to mark International Human Rights Day, defying the orders of their own leaders and police and military roadblocks, local media reported Monday. Accompanied by rights campaigners, some of the monks have been walking towards the city ...

The Cambodian government should promptly close all centers arbitrarily detaining people outside the criminal justice system, Licadho and Human Rights Watch said today. The abusive nature of these centers was highlighted by the death on November 26, 2014, of a man who was arbitrarily detained ...

More than a hundred monks and rights activists marching to Phnom Penh for International Human Rights Day were blocked by soldiers and police at their starting point in Takeo province’s Kirivong district yesterday. ...

A UN delegation met with Ratanakkiri province’s deputy police chief yesterday afternoon to discuss the fate of 13 Montagnard asylum seekers who have been hiding in the province in recent weeks. The provincial administration, however, has continued to call for the group’s deportation. Deputy police chief ...

Ignoring objections and even vague threats made by the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Cambodian activists in South Korea plan to stage a protest on Sunday ahead of a five-day summit Prime Minister Hun Sen is scheduled to attend on December 10. Around 1,500 opposition supporters intend to ...

Cambodian police said Wednesday they were scouring remote northeastern jungles for a group of Vietnamese Montagnards who crossed the border in an apparent attempt to seek asylum. Rights groups say 13 of the hill tribe people, including one woman, fled persecution in Vietnam late last month ...

Cambodian authorities are hunting more than a dozen ethnic minority hill people from Vietnam, drawing international criticism and raising further doubts about Australia’s controversial agreement to send refugees to Phnom Penh. Babar Baloch, a spokesman for the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), warned ...

A team from the United Nations refugee agency traveled to northeast Cambodia Wednesday to meet with 13 ethnic Montagnards seeking asylum in the country after fleeing alleged persecution in Vietnam, according to an agency spokesperson and a member of a local rights group. United Nations High ...

Four more goods made in Cambodia have been linked to exploitative child labour, adding to a mounting list of items the United States considers to be produced in violation of international rights laws. The mounting number of Cambodian goods found to use child labour runs ...

The Cambodian Center for Human Rights said that it would deliver Tuesday a giant photo petition to the Ministry of Justice as part of its annual Campaign to End Impunity. A statement on Monday said that CCHR has collected 263 photos of people holding signs that ...

A UN special rapporteur will take the cause of Cambodia’s land-eviction battles and the abuses faced by those waging them to the UN Human Rights Council, according to a report released today. Michel Forst, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, will file ...

Eight land activists put in prison last month after a swift trial say they will hold a hunger strike if they are not released. The eight activists were part of a roundup in November for street protests against city officials and a development project at ...

Two ethnic Jarai Montagnards claiming to have fled religious persecution in Vietnam may have been arrested by local police in Ratanakkiri province, a rights worker has said. The UN is seeking to intervene in the case and has requested government cooperation while several more Christian Montagnards ...

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday lashed out at critics who claimed that the recent arrests of four opposition officials for their alleged roles in a violent protest were politically motivated, saying they had committed criminal acts and must be tried according to law. The ...

Cambodia has drastically reduced the amount of human rights recommendations it will implement as part of the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review, saying they were overly repetitive. While Cambodia was criticised for deferring recommendations, which dealt with issues such as freedom of expression and the ...

An activist monk set to face trial today on widely disputed charges of incitement alongside a so-called “terrorist” leader vowed yesterday to use the hearing to preach to the judiciary. In a statement released Sunday, 16 NGOs called for authorities to drop the charges against ...

Street vendor-turned-rights activist Nget Khun, known locally as “Mommy”, is a leading figure in Cambodians’ fight against forced evictions. And at 75, she’s just been jailed for a year. Other activists say the sentencing of Mommy and other women from her Boeung Kak Lake community ...

Rady Mom, Cambodian-American state representative in Massachusetts, U.S.A, was not allowed yesterday to meet with 17 activists who are currently being detained at Prey Sar prison. Rady Mom and his colleagues as well as Members of Parliament and Senators of opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party went ...

More than a dozen ethnic Montagnards are hiding in the jungles of northeastern Cambodia after fleeing alleged religious persecution across the border in Vietnam, a member of a hill tribe living in the area said Monday. The 13 Christian Montagnards, who crossed into Cambodia’s Ratanakiri province ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is trying to ease concerns over the social and economic costs of the country’s plan with Australia to receive refugees. U.S.-based Human Rights Watch has called for the deal to be halted until Cambodia improves its refugee support system. Hun Sen ...