Land

Svay Rieng Provincial Court officials are investigating an employee of the Ministry of Interior who is accused of fraudulently selling his land to someone and not honouring the deal. Ros Sithan, a logistics department officer at the ministry, was arrested on the evening of September 28, ...

Global development group Oxfam on Wednesday called on the World Bank to suspend financing for large-scale land acquisitions to ensure that its practices do not encourage foreign land grabs in developing countries. Oxfam urged Jim Yong Kim, the lender’s new president, to announce a six-month moratorium ...

Families in the capital’s Por Sen Chey district face a tense morning as they prepare for the familiar sound of authorities moving in to evict them. Nineteen families in Andong village were told in a letter from district authorities that today was the deadline for them ...

A UN envoy has called on the international community to pay more attention to human rights issues in Cambodia. The call comes amid ongoing land disputes and legal harassment of activists. Surya Subedi is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia and has submitted ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday that there was a lack of staff at the Ministry of Land Management, and suggested that the students in his land measuring program be utilized to rectify the shortage. Mr. Hun Sen made the comments while visiting Pursat province’s Phnom ...

Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday summonsed three well-known rights workers and a journalist to appear for questioning next week over years-old incitement charges in connection with a long-standing land dispute. In a summons signed by deputy provincial prosecutor Chea Sopheak, the court ordered Radio Free Asia journalist Sok Ratha, ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday summoned three human rights workers and a journalist over allegations that hey incited indigenous ethnic minority villagers in Lumphat district to protest violently against a powerful agro-industry company in 2009. Deputy court prosecutor Chea Sopheak said he had requested Adhoc provincial ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court handed down a 20-year jail sentence to independent radio station owner Mam Sonando yesterday for his role in fomenting an alleged secessionist movement in a decision drawing condemnation from human rights groups and some of Cambodia’s main foreign donors. The court ...

A Cambodian court has jailed a 71-year-old broadcaster and land rights campaigner for 20 years after finding him guilty of leading an anti-state rebellion, a verdict condemned by activists as the latest crackdown on human rights. Three judges at the Phnom Penh court convicted Sonando, who ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday amended a directive on economic land concession (ELC) taxes, which will mean that owners of agricultural ELCs must pay tax of $5 on every hectare of land after the fifth year of ownership, according to the Council of Ministers. Mr. ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday ordered investors in economic land concessions (ELC) to pay tax from the sixth year of their investment in a bid to speed up their agricultural production. The premier decided that investment companies receiving ELCs must pay the land tax ...

Kampong Chhnang villagers who have been hit with a new lawsuit over property that they and the wife of a senior government official both claim said yesterday that coming to court would be impossible, as they did not have a defense lawyer and needed time to locate ...

Land conflicts, discrimination, corruption and inequality dominated discussions between citizens and lawmakers at forums across the country this year, according to the U.S.-based organization the National Democratic Institute (NDI). In its annual report, obtained yesterday, the NDI noted “significant consistencies in the concerns facing Cambodians across ...

The new list of reforms approved by the government at a high-level meeting with its foreign donors on Wednesday offer a mixed bag of targets, with some sectors, such as education, given more ambitious goals than before, while others had their ambitions scaled back and old goals ...

Nearly 2,000 families living on the bank of the Sekong River in Stung Treng district will be evicted beginning January to make way for the construction of public gardens, officials said this week. Loy Sophat, Stung Treng provincial governor, said the evicted families could purchase ...

Officials yesterday confirmed that the Cambodian government will receive a majority of the revenue share from Chevron’s offshore Block A oil permit area near Sihanoukville in the Gulf of Thailand. The government expects to issue the American oil giant a production permit licence by the ...

After months of inactivity that has fueled questions about the company’s future, Boeung Kak lake developer Shukaku Inc has launched a recruitment drive, calling for at least half a dozen architects, engineers and other employees. When contacted yesterday, Sok Heng Ly, an administrative employee listed in the ...

Unable to effectively police the Cardamoms alone, the Cambodian government partners itself with several international NGOs. The forests directly north of Highway 48 arc patrolled with the help of Wildlife Alliance. Beginning in 2002 with two ranger stations, Wildlife Alliance now operates six outposts in the ...

Cambodia is working on three fronts to improve its energy security and supply, including the development of its first oil-producing asset, looking for ways to resolve a disagreement over disputed territory in the Gulf of Thailand, and studying the economic viability of building its own ...

Mirach Energy Ltd., formerly known as China Petrotech Holding Ltd. (CPHL), announced on Tuesday that its Cambodian counterpart, CPHL (Cambodia), had contracted two companies to conduct environmental impact studies for offshore assets in Block D, off the coast of Preah Sihanouk province. Mirach Energy said in ...

Former Khmer Rouge cadres who in return for laying down their weapons and swearing allegiance to the Cambodian government were granted plots of land in what is now Kampot province say local authorities aren’t respecting the deal. Representatives of 80 families in the province’s Chhouk district told the ...

Amid a recent spike in police violence against land protesters, Cambodia’s foreign donors yesterday together called on the government for “responsible policing” and expressed “concern” over the trend. The relative candor from aid donors toward the end of the high-level but long-delayed meeting with top government ...

Representatives of 19 families facing the eviction from their homes in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district submitted a petition to City Hall yesterday, demanding land as compensation. The families claim that the eviction is doubly bitter because they had been relocated to Andong 3 Village, Kouk ...

Three ethnic Bunong communities in Mondolkiri province may soon receive long-awaited collective property titles, which would bring to six the total number of communal land titles granted to the country’s indigenous people since the Land Law was created in 2011. And while the possible issuing of the three ...