Laws and regulations

Institution-based sex crimes against children and the threat of online pedophiles are a “growing concern” in Cambodia, child protection organisation APLE said in its annual report yesterday. ...

The number of people arrested on drug-related charges in Cambodia more than doubled last year, according to a report by the National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD). About 7,000 people were arrested last year, compared to just 3,142 in 2014, an increase that authorities are ...

The government is refusing to release copies of letters it claims to have sent to timber traders Try Pheap and Lim Bunna giving them permission to collect already felled wood on a pair of canceled economic land concessions (ELCs) inside a wildlife sanctuary. ...

Roughly 30 villagers locked in a land dispute with Koh Kong Sugar protested at a construction site yesterday where they say the company was attempting to erect a concrete barrier on disputed land. ...

Mong Reththy Group, one of the Kingdom’s largest agro-industrial conglomerates, insisted yesterday that it had settled arrears on its palm oil concession more than six months ago, contrary to local media reports stating the company owed concession rental fees dating back nearly 20 years. ...

Public officials and stakeholders drafting new access to information legislation listened yesterday as speakers underlined the importance of incorporating public feedback into the long-awaited law. ...

As a national crackdown on illegal logging rumbles on, Try Pheap, Cambodia’s most prominent timber tycoon, issued a public denial of reports that he was linked to an economic land concession (ELC) where authorities found hundreds of cubic metres of potentially illegal timber. ...

Following a nationwide spate of violent gun crime over the past few months, the government has called on City Hall for help in its crackdown on illegal firearms, a problem one Ministry of Interior official laid at the feet of authorities themselves. ...

In a report released last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) came to the predictable—and mostly well-supported—conclusion that Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government was failing in its duty to protect its people. ...

Efforts to empower women at a sub-national level are drastically under-funded, according to research released yesterday. ...

Nearly four decades after fleeing Cambodia as a child, a tearful Michael Vannak Khem Misie­wicz returned to his home country in De­cember 2010 on the U.S. Navy guid­ed-missile destroyer he commanded; his fall from grace has been equally dramatic. ...

Large volumes of cigarettes are being smuggled from Cambodia to Vietnam as the Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday approaches, despite Vietnamese authorities’ efforts to deter the situation. ...

A protest against city hall’s decision to clear residents’ land for a new road on Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changvar peninsula without paying compensation yesterday entered its second day. ...

A group of over 50 protesters gathered in front of Takeo Provincial Court on Monday demanding government intervention after allegedly being scammed out of $160,000 by a provincial savings association, 30 of whom were summoned to provincial court yesterday in response to their case being ...

An Indian company planning to extract 500 tons of rock per day from beneath Pheak village in O Yadauv, Ratanakiri this year has promised locals, again, that their digging will have little effect on the mine’s surrounding forest and homes, and that they will replace ...

After over 100 villagers in Kampong Thom province’s Sandan district spent three days protesting a sand dredging operation near their homes in Srey Chang village, the company responsible for allegedly affecting villager’s jobs and drinking water source agreed to stop their project in its entirety.  ...

Roughly ten residents from the Kien Kleang community set fire to tires in protest of a City Hall development near National Road 6A, along which the majority of the community lives, after bulldozers began felling their fences and clearing their land.  ...

After over 100 villagers in Kampong Thom province’s Sandan district spent three days protesting a sand dredging operation near their homes in Srey Chang village, the company responsible for allegedly affecting villager’s jobs and drinking water source agreed to stop their project in its entirety. ...

Hundreds of logs of timber, including luxury wood, as well as sawmill camps were torched at a controversial Vietnamese-owned economic land concession in Mondulkiri province’s Keo Seima district in an apparent bid to destroy evidence of illegal logging ahead of a raid by a new ...

Thirty-one evicted Borei Keila community families received flats and another four families got $15,000 buyouts on Saturday as part of a “lucky draw” organised to resolve their years-long land dispute. ...

About 50 Phnom Penh residents gathered On Sunday to rally against a planned road on Chroy Changva peninsula that will run alongside a massive $3 billion development project. The 12-meter-wide road will be located just 100 meters behind National Road 6A. ...

In response to the Facebook comment of a medical student, Prime Minister Hun Sen has decided to lower the final exam fee for medical students from about $125 to $25. ...

Cambodia’s National Police have joined the fray in an ongoing crackdown against illegal logging, starting their own “mission group” following the creation of a military police task force last week. ...

The ministries of health and information are working together to put some teeth into last year’s law restricting the advertisement of tobacco products to sale locations. ...