Social development
Human rights
Thousands Join Opposition Rally in Phnom Penh
Thousands of opposition supporters made their way to Freedom Park in Phnom Penh on Wednesday morning to begin the first of a three-day demonstration designed to urge signatories of the Paris Peace Agreement to intervene in the country’s current political deadlock. Unlike at the previous protests ...
Colin Meyn and Simon Marks
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/thousands-join-opposition-rally-in-phnom-penh-45722/
Petition for Investigation Into Sugar Trade Gains Support
More than 55,000 people have joined an online petition set up by a pair of French nongovernment groups urging the European Union (E.U.) to immediately launch an investigation into local sugar plantations accused of illegally evicting hundreds of Cambodian families. At the center of the dispute ...
Zsombor Peter and Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/petition-for-investigation-into-sugar-trade-gains-support-45704/
SL Garment Protesters Gain Little From Talks at Labor Ministry
A two-day meeting between union leaders, senior government officials and representatives of the SL Garment Factory failed Tuesday to reach a solution for factory workers, who have been on strike since early August and on Monday demonstrated in front of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Phnom ...
Ben Woods and Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/sl-garment-protesters-gain-little-from-talks-at-labor-ministry-45708/
City Says It Will Provide Land Titles to 33 Boeng Kak Families
Phnom Penh Municipality will provide land titles to 33 more families living in the city’s Boeng Kak neighborhood, a municipal official said Tuesday, roughly a third of those still seeking property rights in the area that has seen some 3,000 forced evictions. “First, we will solve ...
Khy Sovuthy and Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/city-says-it-will-provide-land-titles-to-33-boeng-kak-families-45710/
CNRP Assured of No Roadblocks During Demonstration
Opposition CNRP lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua last night emerged from a meeting with Phnom Penh City Hall representatives proclaiming that she had the assurance of the Municipal police chief that there would be no roadblocks in or around Phnom Penh during the opposition’s three-day demonstration starting ...
Khuon Narim and Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/cnrp-assured-of-no-roadblocks-during-demonstration-45698/
Ethnic Bunong Families Seek Solution to Communal Land Dispute
Three ethnic minority communities in Mondolkiri province’s Pech Chreada district are drafting a petition to send to provincial authorities in an attempt to resolve a land dispute in which part of their communal land has been granted to other communities and private landowners. In June, officials ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ethnic-bunong-families-seek-solution-to-communal-land-dispute-45669/
Police Train at Freedom Park as Protesters Target Hun Sen’s House
As hundreds of riot police conducted protest suppression drills in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park on Monday morning, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s mansion in the center of the city was the focal point of a demonstration by some 2,000 garment factory workers. Municipal police, along with 16 ...
Aun Pheap and Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/police-train-at-freedom-park-as-protesters-target-hun-sens-house-2-45638/
Another Haul of Illegal Logs Found on Vietnamese Firm’s Land
Forestry Administration officials on Friday confiscated 1,000 pieces of luxury wood on land belonging to a Vietnamese rubber company that has been repeatedly accused of illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, local officials and human rights workers said Sunday. Romash Svat, a representative of some ...
Aun Pheap and Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/another-haul-of-illegal-logs-found-on-vietnamese-firms-land-45514/
Court Dismisses Rights Groups’ Complaints
The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has dismissed two complaints submitted by two local human rights groups, Adhoc and the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), against local officials who they alleged had defamed and intimidated their staff, court officials said Friday. Adhoc filed a complaint against Pheng ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/court-dismisses-rights-groups-complaints-45516/
2,000 Cambodian children die of diarrhea per year: UNICEF
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) office in Cambodia said Sunday that a new figure showed that about 2,000 Cambodian children die every year of diarrheal diseases due to lack of safe water, sanitation and basic hygiene. “In Cambodia, perhaps 2,000 die of diarrhea each year. ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/health/2013-10/20/c_132814406.htm
Media Groups Call On ‘Political Elite’ to Protect Reporters
More than a dozen journalism and human rights groups have called on Cambodia’s political forces to protect journalists and guarantee citizens’ access to an open and unobstructed press during the current political unrest. In a statement released Wednesday, the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, along with ...
Lindsey Peterson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/media-groups-call-on-political-elite-to-protect-reporters-45436/
Security Guards Disrupt Memorial Ceremony for Slain Man
There were ugly scenes on Friday at Phnom Penh’s hill-temple Wat Phnom when district security guards scuffled, shouted abuse and punched a group of mostly women and monks who had gathered to hold a memorial ceremony for Mao Sok Chan—the 29-year-old man shot dead by ...
Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/security-guards-disrupt-memorial-ceremony-for-slain-man-45479/
Police beat Borei Keila activists blocking road
Yet another clash between protesters and police resulted in at least three women being knocked unconscious in the capital yesterday. A Post reporter saw police punch and use batons to quell protesters after a group of about 250 people, including many from the Borei Keila community ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/police-beat-borei-keila-activists-blocking-road
Hopes high for maid program
In one corner of the cavernous training centre, a woman patiently strips the baby blue sheets off a queen-size bed, removing the flower-patterned pillowcases and folding them neatly to one side. Under the watchful eye of an instructor, she then remakes the bed, carefully fluffing the ...
Kevin Ponniah and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/hopes-high-maid-program
Media Groups Call On ‘Political Elite’ to Protect Reporters
More than a dozen journalism and human rights groups have called on Cambodia’s political forces to protect journalists and guarantee citizens’ access to an open and unobstructed press during the current political unrest. In a statement released Wednesday, the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, along with ...
Lindsey Peterson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/media-groups-call-on-political-elite-to-protect-reporters-45436/
Land-titling process ‘urgent’, Oxfam says
Accelerating the mapping and titling of rural farmland should be an “urgent” priority of the government and civil society, particularly when it comes to protecting indigenous peoples’ and women’s rights, Oxfam representatives said yesterday. The remarks followed the release of an EU-funded survey of rural communities’ ...
Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/land-titling-process-%E2%80%98urgent%E2%80%99-oxfam-says
Authorities ‘ignoring’ children behind bars
Eight-year-old Sokun* spent almost the first seven years of his life in prison. Unlike other Cambodian children who have the freedom to play and run free, countless hours of his early life were spent in a hot, squalid and teeming cell in the prison where his ...
Kevin Ponniah and Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/authorities-%E2%80%98ignoring%E2%80%99-children-behind-bars
CPP hints at NEC reforms
The ruling Cambodian People’s Party has reiterated its commitment to carry out electoral reforms ahead of the 2017 poll in an apparent bid to appease key demands of the opposition, civil society and the international community following July’s disputed election. With rare frankness, the party says ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/cpp-hints-nec-reforms
Youths to march for justice over shooting
More than 300 youth from around Cambodia plan to rally on Friday to demand justice for the man killed during the opposition party’s three-day demonstration last month. Participants from a variety of universities, high schools, youth clubs, civil societies and other groups will march from Wat ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/youths-march-justice-over-shooting
Monks feeling policed
During a small press conference yesterday, the founder of the Independent Monk Network said about 30 police officers came to Wat Botum two nights in one week, asking to search the premises for “bad men” who may be hiding there. The visits occurred on the nights ...
Sean Teehan and Buth Reaksmey Kongkea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/monks-feeling-policed
Suspects to wear saffron
Suspects on trial already detained by authorities will now be forced to wear a prison uniform to court, a director at the General Department of Prisons at the Ministry of Interior said yesterday. About 7,000 of the new uniforms will be distributed to prisons nationwide, he ...
Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/suspects-wear-saffron
Conditions Worsening at Siem Reap and Battambang Prisons
Conditions are deteriorating for hundreds of inmates that were forced by flooding to move to the already overcrowded Battambang and Siem Reap prisons from Banteay Meanchey prison, and human rights groups are not sure how long it will be before the prison is operational again, ...
Ben Sokhean and Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/conditions-worsening-at-siem-reap-and-battambang-prisons-45102/
Activists Demand Interior Ministry Lead Wat Phnom Attack Probe
Dozens of anti-eviction activists on Monday held a rally in Phnom Penh and submitted a petition to the Ministry of Interior, demanding the arrests of Daun Penh district officials they claim conspired to viciously attack them during a peaceful protest at Wat Phnom last month. On ...
Khuon Narim
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/activists-demand-interior-ministry-lead-wat-phnom-attack-probe-45111/
Appeal Court to Try Stalled Case of Murdered Journalist
The case of journalist Hang Serei Odom, who was found hacked to death and stuffed into the trunk of his Toyota Camry in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Chum district on September 11 last year, will be heard by the Appeal Court in Phnom Penh, a senior court ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/appeal-court-to-try-stalled-case-of-murdered-journalist-45107/