Legal framework

Interior Minister Sar Kheng on Wednesday ordered police across the country to focus on investigating and arresting the leaders of illegal-drug syndicates rather than low-level traffickers and users. ...

As refugees being held by Australia on the South Pacific island of Nauru continue to spurn the prospect of resettling in Cambodia, many Cambodians likewise say they do not want to see any of the refugees sent to their country. ...

Despite a 72 percent increase in the number of drug-related arrests last year compared to 2013, 50 percent less drugs were seized during the same period, an official from the National Authority for Combating Drugs’ (NACD) said Tuesday. ...

Police in Mondolkiri province on Tuesday burned down more than 130 shelters belonging to a community of ethnic Bunong families in Keo Seima district that authorities accuse of squatting on a Vietnam­ese rubber plantation, a local official said. ...

A Russian man wanted for his involvement in a violent brawl at Sihanoukville’s Queenco casino in February was arrested and jailed Tuesday evening after leading more than 20 police on an hour-long motorbike chase through the coastal town, officials said. ...

Four Chinese tourists were sent to the Preah Sihanouk Provincial Court on Tuesday after being arrested in Sihanoukville on Monday in possession of nearly $500 worth of counterfeit dollar bills, local authorities said. ...

Incensed by the prime minister’s assertion last week that the “same faces” always show up at protests, a group of Phnom Penh’s most prominent anti-eviction activists picketed City Hall on Monday to vent their anger. ...

Health experts have thrown their weight behind a provision in the draft tobacco-control law that will require graphic health warnings to cover half the face of Cambodia’s cigarette packages. According to article 10 of the law – first drafted in 2003 – the images must ...

A judge at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court suspended the trial of an opposition activist Monday after the defendant demanded that his alleged victims face him in court and declared that his trial was a politicized sham. ...

Police on Saturday tracked down the owner of an overloaded truck that caused a bridge to collapse last week in Kompong Cham province. ...

The husband of a woman attacked with acid at a market in Takeo province in November plans to file complaints Monday with the Supreme Council of the Magistracy and the Anti-Corruption Unit, claiming local court officials are to blame for a lack of action in ...

As anticipated, the U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday approved U.K. professor Rhona Smith as the new special rapporteur to Cambodia on human rights, replacing Surya Subedi, whose six-year term ends this month. ...

The Mondolkiri Provincial Court on Friday charged six Vietnamese nationals with illegally logging in the province’s O’Reang district, where they were caught felling first-grade Sokrom trees after allegedly crossing into Cambodia with the help of a local military officer, officials said Sunday. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday sentenced a woman to 15 years in jail for convincing her two cousins and a neighbor to sell their kidneys in Thailand last year. ...

Another Montagnard asylum-seeker has arrived in Phnom Penh, joining 10 others who are still in the capital after having their requests to have their refugee claims processed rejected, according to the U.N. ...

A Turkish man was sentenced to nine years in jail Friday for purchasing the virginity of two 14-year-old girls in Phnom Penh last year. ...

The U.N. was due to appoint its new human rights envoy to Cambodia on Friday night at the 28th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva, with British academic Rhona Smith expected to be selected from a three-person shortlist. ...

The trial of 11 opposition figures accused of leading or participating in an insurrection began at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday, with the prosecutor questioning just two of the suspects. ...

In the wake of a nightclub fire in Bavet City that killed five people on Monday, the Tourism Ministry has decided to begin more aggressively enforcing a 2014 sub-decree that requires all bars, nightclubs and karaoke parlors to have multiple exits, fire extinguishers and soundproofing, ...

The Stung Treng Provincial Court on Wednesday released seven men who were arrested for illegally logging in the province’s Sesan district, an official said. ...

A prominent Areng Valley activist has been summonsed for questioning at Koh Kong Provincial Court next week over alleged forest crimes. ...

Anti-human trafficking police arrested a woman Wednesday after they discovered she was running an unlicensed training center in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district that promised to send students to work in Japan or South Korea after paying for courses, an official said Thursday. ...

The opposition CNRP will neither protest at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday nor send any senior officials there to oppose the scheduled hearing of 11 of its members who stand charged with “insurrection,” opposition spokesman Yem Ponhearith said Thursday. ...

Four children were injured, two of them seriously, after playing with unexploded ordnance (UXO) near their school in Siem Reap province’s Chi Kreng district on Tuesday, police said Thursday. ...