Land policy and administration

Five men in Koh Kong province could be prosecuted for stealing from a construction crew after the group allegedly seized tools in January, preventing the construction team from building fences in their village. Police summonsed the villagers from Kiri Sakor district’s Prek Khsach commune for questioning ...

The government is refusing to compensate up to 1,000 families forced to wait for income restoration measures after being relocated from their homes for an Asian Development Bank-funded railway rehabilitation project, a previously unreleased action plan from the ADB reveals. The ADB Management Action Plan, released ...

About 50 residents evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood in 2008 and 2009 to make way for a senator’s real estate project once again protested in front of City Hall Monday to demand better compensation. They are among some 3,000 families who were forced ...

Environment Minister Say Sam Al met with private firms with land concessions last week to gauge their compliance with government rules and regulations, and adherence to their own contracts. Amid mounting local and international pressure, Prime Minister Hun Sen in mid-2012 ordered a freeze on ...

Seventy-four former Khmer Rouge soldiers fighting for land they claim the government granted them in the 1990s have agreed to meet with the military commanders who allegedly sold the parcels for personal profit. The meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, follows a week after a pair representatives for ...

A two-star army general was arrested Friday on charges of defamation because he lost a court case over a dispute with a land broker and a formerly high-ranking police official, his lawyer said. Major General Chea Dara’s lawyer, Put Theavy, said yesterday that the dispute ...

Residents of property development site, Boeung Kok, on Thursday gathered in front of an office of World Bank in Phnom Penh in order to present petition to the World Bank. They were seeking intervention from the World Bank to help solve years-long land dispute in their ...

Members of a Lao ethnic community in Ratanakkiri province allegedly burned down three makeshift houses belonging to a rubber plantation on Monday. The 250 villagers in Veun Sai district’s Hatpak village accuse Indian-owned SK Company of encroaching on the forest and ignoring markers demarcating village farmland, ...

About 80 villagers calling for the release of two former Khmer Rouge soldiers allegedly arrested for illegally occupying land in Malai district rallied outside Banteay Meanchey Provincial Hall, locals and rights group Adhoc said yesterday. Community representatives Ly Khley and Hoeun Vy were detained on Tuesday ...

Fourteen families evicted from Boeung Kak were left disappointed again yesterday when Phnom Penh’s governor ignored their calls to increase the size of land plots authorities had offered them. During a three-hour meeting, Governor Pa Socheatvong held firm on a 2011 decision that the families would ...

A deputy district governor and a land tycoon are allegedly attempting to seize land deemed sacred by about 700 monks and residents who gathered yesterday in protest outside the unfinished Wat Kohbodhivong in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district. Banner-wielding participants said that tycoon Chheang Paksour and ...

The Court of Appeal on Tuesday upheld a 2012 conviction of encroaching on public land, but significantly reduced the sentence, against businesswoman Chhin Sokountheary for illegally filling in part of a Phnom Penh lake. Ms. Sokountheary—also known as Grandma Crocodile for the crocodile farm she owns—was ...

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has launched an internal investigation into a complaint lodged against the institution for investing in a Vietnamese rubber firm accused of illegal logging and land grabbing in Ratanakkiri, an NGO and villager said yesterday. Earlier this month, representatives of the IFC’s ...

A familiar figure has popped up atop a building that authorities in Phnom Penh ordered demolished in October for violating height restrictions around the Royal Palace: a statue of late King Father Norodom Sihanouk. “I have built a King statue on the top of my building ...

More than two dozen NGOs have written to the head of the Asian Development Bank demanding the immediate release of a draft plan the ADB has drawn up to help Cambodian families evicted to make way for a bank-funded railway rehabilitation project. They also want ...

Eight families involved in a land dispute in Kompong Chhnang province with Chea Kheng, the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem, on Wednesday walked away from a meeting that was set up at their local district administrative office to resolve the dispute, an ...

Families evicted for a rail project funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) threatened to demonstrate if the bank does not show them its plan to improve their living conditions within one week. About 1,000 families who built homes over the country’s long-neglected train tracks were ...

Property has seen a boost in Sihanoukville city in the first quarter of this year, underpinned by increased tourist numbers year-on-year. Cheng Kheng, director of CPL Real Estate Company and president of the Cambodian Valuers and Estate Agents Association, said the outlook on property in Sihanoukville ...

About a dozen Tuol Kok district security guards in Phnom Penh on Tuesday blocked three families involved in a long-running land dispute from building a fence around the disputed property in Boeng Kak I commune, an official said. Deputy district governor Saing Sopheak Vichet said the ...

Representatives of 50 families in Ratanakkiri’s Andong Meas district filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc yesterday alleging that a Vietnamese concessionaire is responsible for destroying about 50 hectares of cashew plantations. Sorl Penh, 58, a representative for the villagers from Nhang commune, said yesterday that ...

In 2011, Oeun Phirun took out a $450 loan from the Asian Development Bank, using half to buy a used motorbike and spending the rest on a small flock of ducks and chickens he hoped to raise. His family and about 1,000 others have been evicted ...

The government yesterday accused Licadho of producing wildly misleading figures on land grabs, following the rights group’s announcement earlier this week that land conflicts in Cambodia have affected more than half a million people since 2000. Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Sar Sovan, secretary of ...

Sixty-eight Khmer Krom families in Takeo province allege they are being forcibly evicted, charged by fishery authorities with illegally occupying a nature preserve. Yesterday, three representatives from the Borei Choslar district, Sangkum Meanchey village, were summonsed to court. ...

Preah Vihear provincial governor Oum Mara has sent a letter to inform Interior Minister Sar Kheng that he is ordering an NGO to close its local offices, on the grounds that the organization is inciting villagers to destroy sugarcane farmed by a Chinese company. In the ...