Land

A Commerce Ministry official yesterday denied that Cambodia was exporting luxury wood logs to China, insisting that any wood leaving the country was in a “processed” form. The China Customs data also states that each year, just under 10,000 cubic meters of “logs” and about ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen again addressed recent criticism from [Surya Subedi] the U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia , during a speech yesterday in Bateay Meanchey province that focused on land disputes. Mr. Hun Sen was speaking in Thma Puok district’s Banteay Chhmar commune, where he ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has summonsed for questioning Kim Seanglay, a military policeman who was the subject of one of slain journalist Hang Serei Oudom’s articles on the illegal timber trade, Chhay Thi, an investigator for the rights group Adhoc, said yesterday. According to their ...

Officials from Prime Minister’s Hun Sen’s cabinet yesterday accepted the petition of 110 Preah Vihear villager representatives seeking intervention in a land dispute with defunct NGO DARPO. Hun Sen cabinet member Nov Ra told villagers who protested in front of the prime minister’s house to return ...

Four years after they began fighting the well-connected concessionaire DM Group, members of the ethnic Tampuon who remain in Svay Sor village are exhausted. While the DM Group has seen its complaints against villagers and activists routinely heard at court, those filed by the affected families ...

An expected verdict in the unintentional murder case of the man accused of shooting slain environmentalist Chut Wutty’s killer was delayed at Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday because the presiding judge was ill. Neang Boratino, Koh Kong provincial coordinator for the rights group Adhoc, said a ...

Evictees wearing small model houses on their heads to symbolize their struggles marched to the National Assembly yesterday to ask authorities to intervene to stop more forced evictions. About 400 representatives of 40 communities across the capital joined human rights activists at the former Dey Krahorm eviction site ...

The effects of the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 on the Cambodian economy showed how perilous having a narrow economic base can be. Since the Kingdom’s economy is dependent on a few “pillars”-garments, construction, tourism and agriculture-downturns in any of those sectors can ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday questioned four people- including a military police official and a police officer- in relation to the killing of journalist Hang Serei Odom, whose body was discovered hacked to death last month in the trunk of his car,a court official and ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday questioned one of three human rights workers charged-alongside a journalist-with inciting ethnic minority villagers to protest violently against a powerful agro-industry firm during a 2009 land dispute. A representative of the villagers said yesterday that about 500 of them are planning to gather ...

Thirty families uprooted by Cambodia’s railway rehabilitation project have filed a complaint with Australia’s highest human rights body, alleging rights abuses as a result of the partially AusAid-funded rail project. The complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission was made on behalf of the families by NGOs Equitable Cambodia and Inclusive ...

Hundreds of families from more than a dozen communities joined local human rights groups yesterday as they rallied outside the National Assembly for World Habitat Day, calling for an end to forced land evictions in Phnom Penh. Among those protesting were residents from the Boeng ...

Thousands of cubic meters of luxury wood is being shipped from Cambodia to China each year, according to official Chinese import documents shown to The Cambodia Daily. According to the data, some 36,000 cubic meters of logs under the “rosewood” category have been recorded entering China ...

Hun Sen’s titling plan was announced in June and is intended to resolve land conflict stemming from the Khmer Rouge regime’s ban on private property in the 1970s. Around 1,600 students have been sent around the country to demarcate 4.4 million acres of uncontested territory, which ...

Three members of the family of murdered journalist Hang Seri Oudom will appear in Ratanakkiri provincial court on Wednesday, according to their lawyer. Oudom, who exposed illegal logging in the area for the Virakchun Khmer newspaper, disappeared last month when he left his house at night ...

A week after Prime Minister Hun Sen announced that he would be cancelling an unknown number of economic land concessions in Prey Lang forest, activists called for details on the annulled concessions, saying such revocations would be meaningless unless they could be policed. On September ...

An NGO’s plan to build an “entire city” for the victims of a forced eviction has been backed by the Phnom Penh municipal government, with preliminary construction already under way. The $2.2 to $2.5 million project, devised by the organisation People for Care and Learning, is expected ...

UN Human Rights Envoy to Cambodia Prof Surya Subedi has taken a strong exception to the scathing criticism of him by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, saying it was unbecoming of a person of the prime minister´s stature to “descend to the personal level”. In a ...

Environmental protection group Global Witness has added its voice to the growing criticism of the Koh Kong Provincial Court’s decision to end its investigation int the murder of environmental activist Chut Wutty. The decision to drop the case “can only be described by as the latest ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday implicated his cousin as being behind an attempt to sell land in Svay Rieng province that was set aside by the government in 2009 to provide hundreds of land titles to villagers on a social land concession. Speaking at a ...

Deputy Prime Minister Sok An yesterday approved the creation of a joint commission which will undertake the role of evicting hundreds of families living near the Phnom Penh International Airport before the Asean and East Asia summits commence next month. Mr. Sath [Choam Chao commune ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday appeared to add his voice to the strong government reaction against criticism from U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi. Mr. Subedi last month delivered reports on human rights and economic land concessions in Cambodia to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. His ...

A motodop at the center of the high-profile case against imprisoned Boeung Kak lake villager Yorm Bopha has returned to work after receiving treatment for head injuries, he said yesterday. Supporters of Nget Chet, 28, said during demonstrations last month that the motodop had been nearly brain damaged during an ...

Villagers took an increasingly vocal stand on land issues during rare opportunities to speak with National Assembly members this past year, according to the National Democratic Institute. During the most recent town hall-style Constituency Dialogues, started by NDI in 2004 to promote contact between assembly members ...