Human rights

Ten years after his assassination, friends and associates remember Chea Vichea, the founding president of the Free Trade Union, as a quiet man but a charismatic leader, passionate about labor issues and the right for workers to collectively bargain for higher wages and better conditions. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen passed a sub-decree late last year to expand the scope of his government’s Cambodian Human Rights Committee (CHRC) by creating new departments and placing rights monitors in villages, according to a copy of the Royal Gazette dated December 31 and distributed ...

Phnom Penh police released union leader Sok Chhun Oeung from custody Monday, a day after dragging him off the street at a peaceful protest he had organized along Phnom Penh’s riverside against the detention of 23 men still in jail for participating in demonstrations over ...

Preliminary research in two provinces has found that a lack of implementation of the domestic violence law means that women continue to suffer abuse and more needs to be done to ensure that attitudes change and perpetrators are held accountable. Katherine Brickell, senior lecturer in Human ...

The European Parliament has passed a resolution calling on the bloc’s executive body to urgently act on an EU preferential trade scheme found to have carried high risks of human rights violations in Cambodia through land evictions for industrial sugar development. In a January 16 resolution, ...

Hundreds of civil society representatives, garment workers and community groups are expected to take to the streets this morning to deliver petitions to foreign embassies calling on the government to release the 23 people arrested during garment worker strikes earlier this month and find justice ...

District security guards this morning arrested 11 political activists taking part in a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh against the imprisonment of 23 protesters who were beaten and arrested earlier this month. The protesters, including union leader Rong Chhun and prominent ...

Cambodian police broke up a rally in the capital on Tuesday and briefly detained 11 activists who were calling for international assistance to secure the release of protesters arrested in a recent crackdown. The detentions came as the country’s main opposition party called off a planned ...

Ahead of the 10-year anniversary on Wednesday of the assassination of Free Trade Union (FTU) President Chea Vichea, police said Monday that despite their inability to bring anyone to justice for the high-profile slaying, the case remains open. However, Chea Mony, the brother of Chea Vichea, ...

Phnom Penh governor Pa Socheatvong on Friday visited evicted residents of the Borei Keila community, now living in a slum atop piles of garbage near their former homes, and promised, yet again, to build proper housing for the 150 families who refuse to move from ...

Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association (CITA), said Friday that he feels the teachers’ movement is under threat after he received a notice from the Ministry of Interior, summoning him to explain his work on Monday. The letter, dated Thursday and signed by ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Police this morning released a union leader they scooped off the street yesterday evening for allegedly leading a protest despite a ban on public demonstrations. Sok Chhun Oeung, acting president of the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association (IDEA), left the police station ...

Challenging the ban on demonstrations in Phnom Penh, activists rallied Friday at the U.S. Embassy, the Japanese Embassy, the Australian Embassy and the German Embassy before stopping for lunch and rallying again, in the afternoon, at the British Embassy, the European Union and World Bank ...

About 150 garment worker union representatives will defy a ban on public assemblies and mark the 10th anniversary of the assassination of union leader Chea Vichea by marching from their office in Chamkar Mon district to the site of his murder at Wat Lanka on ...

The UN envoy concluded his six-day visit to Cambodia producing a concrete report, which reflects both the positive and negative aspects of human rights situation in the Kingdom. As for the post-election political impasse, Prof. Surya P. Subedi, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the ...

A draft US law that would require the World Bank to regularly report to congress about the condition of families displaced or still living in the Boeung Kak lake area was approved Wednesday by the House of Representatives. The bill includes language that specifically requires the ...

UN rights envoy Surya Subedi wrapped up his six-day fact-finding mission to Cambodia yesterday by calling for a thorough investigation into security forces’ role in the deadly crackdown on garment workers early this month. He also offered to act as a mediator between the ruling Cambodian ...

UN human rights envoy Surya Subedi yesterday said he was “alarmed” by anti-Vietnamese language used by the opposition party to rally its supporters, a message he said he had conveyed to Cambodia National Rescue Party leaders during his visit. Speaking at a press conference to conclude ...

Cambodia is changing fast. Over the past decade, the capital city, Phnom Penh has expanded exponentially: its bodies of water have been filled in and green spaces diminished. Rural to urban migration has changed the shape of the countryside. Great shifts are under way and ...

Ten lawyers representing 22 of the 23 striking workers, union officials and political activists imprisoned at a maximum-security prison in Kompong Cham province since their arrests at two protests in Phnom Penh earlier this month submitted bail requests for their clients Thursday, one of the ...

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a spending bill that would suspend some funding to Cambodia until the government carries out an independent investigation of July’s disputed national election and reforms its electoral system, or until the opposition ends its boycott of parliament. The ...

Today, a month to the day after his stomach ruptured, Term Hun, 49, remains hospitalised. He was operated on and has long since healed. But without the money to pay for his treatment, the clinic refuses to let him go. After receiving emergency surgery at ...

Dissident monks and political activists hosted a ceremony Thursday for the protesting garment workers killed by military police during their repression of stone-throwing demonstrators on Veng Sreng Street two weeks ago. The hourlong ceremony, held at the home of housing rights activist Tep Vanny in the ...

Garment workers at a Kandal province factory ended their most recent strike Thursday after management agreed to pay out part of their wages for the days they were absent during a previous strike, while workers at a Phnom Penh factory went back on strike because ...