Land tenure and land titling

Two days before a land activist’s scheduled sentencing, about 400 people affected by land grabs demonstrated at Pursat Provincial Court in support of the man who frequently protests against the Pheap Imex Company. About 12,000 families are now involved in land disputes around a Pheap ...

A controversial land titling program set up by Prime Minister Hun Sen has been suspended ahead of the July 28 elections, but critics say the program should not be restarted. The titling program itself began in December 2012 and is expected to end after elections scheduled ...

In the past few years, the explosive events at Boeung Kak lake – including violent evictions and arrests – have gone largely unreported outside the Kingdom’s independent media outlets. Outspoken community representative Tep Vanny has been under attack from her fellow Boeung Kak residents, who ...

Less than two months after staffers at a Vietnamese rubber concessionaire were charged over setting homes aflame during a land dispute, the company has been accused of burning and bulldozing more than 900 cashew nut trees and eight hectares of plantation land in O’Chum district, ...

About 30 former residents of the Boeng Kak community submitted a petition on Friday morning to the World Bank office and several embassies in Phnom Penh, calling for a halt to all funding for longtime anti-eviction protesters from the Boeng Kak area. The Boeng Kak counter-protesters ...

More than 120 families in Phnom Penh’s Dangkao district sent a letter on Monday to the district governor asking for his help in addressing the flooding problem that has seen some of their homes collapse and has forced many to seek temporary accommodation elsewhere, villagers ...

At least two women were injured Monday as housing rights activists clashed with police in Phnom Penh. The activists had been demonstrating by sitting in a major street in front of City Hall to demand land titles in two ongoing land disputes in the capital, those ...

Families who claim a foreigner fabricated documents to sell their land to port officials and a military commander more than seven years ago have desperately appealed to government bodies to intervene. The 104 families who have exhausted legal avenues after both the provincial and Supreme Court ...

Three men locked in a land dispute with Phnom Penh authorities were questioned both by the police and the municipal court Wednesday after they were accused of destroying property on land the government has swapped with a private firm. Ly Bun Heang, said that he, his ...

A London-based sugar trade association aiming to promote a more ethical and sustainable industry will meet early next month to consider a request from Cambodian farmers that it eject U.K.-based sugar firm Tate & Lyle from the group unless it gives them back their land. Some ...

The government does little to protect the rights and livelihoods of the country’s many ethnic minorities who are under constant threat from rapid development, representatives of indigenous groups said yesterday. “We have polices laws and guidelines to protect indigenous people, but we see that it doesn’t ...

Human rights workers and other civil society groups on Wednesday urged the competing political parties for July’s election to address the ongoing land crises and illegal deforestation that are hurting indigenous populations. About 100 people from various ethnic minority groups from five provinces attended a forum ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday forced a family whose three children were allegedly beaten by DM Group firm employees last month to accept only $1,000 in compensation in place of the $40,000 the family initially had demanded, the children’s father claimed. Ry Sarun, 52, said that ...

Nineteen NagaWorld casino employees were detained Tuesday afternoon as police attempted to break up a protest of more than 500 workers who had picketed in front of the casino for the past six days, demanding the company increase their salaries.  The workers had been striking non-violently ...

More than 100 police and security guards, including  riot squad members, were deployed to the capital’s Boeung Kak lake community yesterday to block a protest that, at times, involved only three shouting women. About 50 members of the Boeung Kak community tried to march from Village ...

The Court of Appeal on Friday upheld the guilty verdict for anti-eviction activist Yorm Bopha, but reduced her sentence from three-to two-years imprisonment, of which one year was suspended. The ruling means that Ms. Bopha will not be released until late 2014. Supporters and human rights groups ...

Sporting red bandanas and armed with the accoutrements of Khmer black magic, several hundred demonstrators representing embattled communities throughout the country held noisy protests outside several government offices yesterday, where they placed curses on corrupt officials and submitted written petitions demanding justice. Unlike previous protests that ...

A land titling campaign in Cambodia launched and financed by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s lacks transparency and could leave thousands of people landless, a human rights group said Wednesday, urging the country’s donors to push for reform of the program. The campaign, which employs volunteer youth ...

Okhna Try Pheap’s ballooning empire of exclusive natural resource licences and concessions has been expanded even further with the granting of a special economic zone (SEZ) in Ratanakkiri province. The May 27 issue of the Royal Gazette reveals Pheap was granted a 136-hectare SEZ in O’Yadav ...

Land Management Minister Im Chum Lim awarded a community of ethnic minority Banong in Mondolkiri province a communal land tile to their ancestral land last week, only the eighth communal land title to be handed out since the 2001 Land Law made them available. The title ...

Fifteen villagers representing 18 families from Kratie province involved in an ongoing dispute with the Sovan Vuthy Rubber Company yesterday submitted a petition to the Ministry of Land Management calling for intervention after the company allegedly cleared their farmland. The families say they have lived ...

Responding to a new plan put forward by members of the Bo­eung Kak community and NGOs last month, Phnom Penh Municipal Hall announced on Friday that it had drawn up a list of all families who remain excluded from the 12.44 hectares Prime Minister Hun ...

Local authorities met with Boeung Kak community members yesterday to register villagers left out of the oft-criticised resettlement scheme as a first step to providing them with titles and onsite housing. More than 10 officials including police, commune and village chief, as well as representatives of ...

A village chief and an ethnic minority Tompuon villager were the latest people brought before the Ratanakkiri court for questioning after a private company accused villagers of destroying its property. Kvas Cheav, 57, village chief of Par Or in Keh Chung commune, told the Post that ...