Crime and law enforcement

Dozens of protesters called Monday for the release of Cambodian activists arrested during a bloody crackdown last month, as a prison official said several of the detainees were on hunger strike. The brief rally was held outside the Ministry of Justice and the Appeals Court to ...

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday accused certain groups of trying to hold the nation “hostage,” saying his government was functioning normally despite opposition calls for him to resign and hold fresh elections following disputed polls. His administration has also drawn criticism over its heavy ...

Activists may find themselves in a showdown with police this morning during a planned vigil on Phnom Penh’s riverside and a march to several embassies. National Military Police spokesman Kheng Tito said yesterday that people supporting the release of 21 people detained during a garment strike ...

The fate of Khim Saphath, the 16-year-old boy missing since clashes between striking garment workers and security forces erupted on Veng Sreng Boulevard on January 3, continues to differentiate fatality lists compiled by rights groups. He was last seen lying on the ground with a bloody ...

The U.N.’s special rapporteur on freedom of assembly and association, Maina Kiai, on Friday wrapped up a three-day unofficial visit to Cambodia by paying a visit to the Boeng Kak community, the site of the country’s longest-running land dispute. Inside the home of high-profile Boeng ...

In the weeks that 17-year-old garment worker Yon Chea languished in prison, he spent hours staring out of the window at a concrete wall, certain that he would never see his home or his family again. “I never thought I would get out. There was a ...

Some of the hundreds of families losing land and community forest to Vietnamese-owned rubber plantations in Cambodia’s northeast will this week file a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) over the investment it has made in the plantations’ parent company. Eang Vuthy, executive director of ...

A golden urn police maintain was the one stolen from Oudong mountain in December – sparking a furore and police investigation – was taken to the Royal Palace on Friday, police have said. Deputy Prime Minister Kong Sam Ol on Friday transported the relics – said ...

In the weeks that 17-year-old garment worker Yon Chea languished in prison, he spent hours staring out of the window at a concrete wall, certain that he would never see his home or his family again. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday morning granted ...

Police arrested 11 Cambodian people while they were trying to illegally cross the border to work in Thailand. Thousands of Cambodian people reportedly crossed the border illegally to find jobs and cut down trees in Thailand every year, prompting the Thai soldiers to open fire ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday morning granted bail to two of the 23 union activists and protesters jailed following the lethal suppression of garment worker strikes by military police on January 3. Municipal court presiding Judge Leang Samnatt held an unscheduled hearing on Friday ...

About 200 villagers locked in a land dispute with the Chinese-owned Union Development Group (UDG) in Koh Kong province said they were warned on Friday that “paratroopers” would be brought in if they continued to block a road to the company’s headquarters in Botum Sakor ...

The head of the United Nations agency tasked with defending press freedom today deplored the killing of Cambodian journalist Suon Chan and called for those responsible for the killing to be brought to justice. A group of men wielding stones and bamboo sticks attacked Mr. ...

“What law? No one has ever come to speak to me about that,” said 33-year-old Lim Vannak, scanning the large plastic buckets of corrosive acids she had lined up on the pavement of Phnom Penh’s Street 144 on a recent morning. Acid in the wrong hands ...

Richard Rogers, the lawyer retained by the opposition CNRP to potentially submit a case against Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government with the International Criminal Court at The Hague, said Thursday that letters were hand-delivered to two military police chiefs requesting information about the fatal shooting ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday acquitted Chan Sophon of the 2007 murder of union leader Hy Vuthy, overturning a 2012 conviction and an 18-year jail sentence that rights groups and Mr. Vuthy’s own union believe was cover for the real perpetrators. The judge ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday fined a 29-year-old hairstylist and make-up artist 2 million riel, or about $500, and ordered her to pay 5 million riel, or about $1,250, in compensation to a rival beauty parlor owner she defamed on Facebook. The sentence is ...

Authorities say they have recovered a priceless gold urn believed to contain the ashes of the Buddha from a house in Takeo province’s Traing district. Kandal provincial police chief Eav Chamroeun said officers arrested two suspects yesterday, in the process seizing back the urn, along with ...

A commune police officer has been summonsed to appear at Ratanakkiri’s provincial court on Friday after 10 villagers filed lawsuits against him in September for his alleged involvement in illegal logging in a community forest and for threatening them with a rifle, villagers and the ...

Maina Kiai, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the freedom of assembly and association, met with a Foreign Affairs Ministry official Thursday and raised concerns about the government’s blanket ban on gatherings in Phnom Penh. His visit wraps up today, and a thematic report he will issue ...

Representatives of nine unions met together have made seven resolutions to seek better conditions and wages for workers in Cambodia’s factories. The unions are calling for the release of those workers, the restart of wage negotiations and the “unmasking” of police personnel who did the ...

The father of a 16-year-old boy who went missing during last month’s labor protest crackdowns says he now presumes his son dead. The boy, Khim Sophat, was caught up in demonstrations at the Canadia Industrial Zone in early January. He was not listed among the four ...

In case the 29 officers Prime Minister Hun Sen promoted on January 30 to four-star general were not enough, six Interior Ministry police chiefs were also promoted to the same top rank late last month. A January 22 royal decree, obtained Wednesday, elevated the six lieutenant ...

Two women wounded in the 2011 protest shooting in Svay Rieng province have seen their conditions worsen. A total three women were shot during worker strikes by the former governor of Bavet city, Chhouk Bandith, during worker strikes in February 2011. ...