Law and judiciary

The Ministry of Water Resources seized four boats on Wednesday for allegedly breaking a government ban on river sand dredging in Phnom Penh and is searching for the owners. The city issued the ban last year in response to what it said was an oversupply of ...

Twenty-three labor activists are free from jail, but Freedom Park remains closed to the public. The park is a government-sanctioned place of protest, but it was closed after opposition demonstrations there in April. Phnom Penh spokesman Long Dimanche said there is “no threat” of protests ...

A village chief and security guard in Kompong Chhnang province have denied allegations that they duped villagers out of a 270-hectare social land concession, the Anti-Corruption Unit said Wednesday. The pair also denied clearing a separate 600 hectares of forestland in the province to sell to ...

The former director of the Preah Vihear provincial financial department has denied allegations that he embezzled an estimated $72,045 over the course of 2013, according to his defense posted on the Anti-Corruption Unit website Thursday. Meas Rathavuth, who was ordered into retirement on March 1, said ...

Twelve families locked in a land dispute in Kampot province blocked a construction company on Wednesday from dumping earth onto fields they maintain are theirs, villagers and a rights worker said Thursday. The villagers say the company began encroaching on their land in 2011, when they ...

Four Cambodian nationals who had been incarcerated in Thailand for logging and illegally crossing the border were released on Monday after completing their prison terms, officials said yesterday. Touch Ra, deputy director of the Chaom-Sa Ngaom international border checkpoint in Oddar Meanchey province, said two of ...

The owner of a printing house accused of infringing on the copyright of an author who contracted him was slapped with $12,500 in fines and damages by Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday. ...

Police in Kompong Thom province Wednesday arrested seven people allegedly involved in an illegal checkpoint racket, while an eighth escaped with handcuffs on and is at large. Shortly before 7 a.m., a joint task force of police and military police descended on an illegal checkpoint staffed ...

Two men were sentenced to three years in prison yesterday by Phnom Penh Municipal Court for impersonating a police officer by donning a National Police uniform, complete with a plastic pistol and fake number plate. “After stopping, checking and asking him, we knew he was ...

A 17-year-old high school student was charged Wednesday after he confessed to hacking a government website and creating a Facebook page on which he encouraged people to attack government websites as well as the websites of pro-government groups, officials confirmed, though the exact charges are ...

The Kandal Provincial Court on Tuesday will question five prisoners who have protested their innocence in the December theft of ancient Buddhist relics from Odong mountain, alongside a suspect who confessed to the crime, a court official said Tuesday. “We will punish only the people involved ...

Before he was arrested in January, Vorn Pov and the union he created were not widely known outside of activist circles. But when he emerged from Phnom Penh’s CC1 prison on Friday, he walked away as one of the highest-profile unionists in the country, and a ...

The Ministry of Culture steamrolled 300,000 bootlegged DVDs Monday in its annual celebration of efforts to stamp out piracy. But at DVD shops across Phnom Penh, where pirated movies are sold for $1.50 or less, owners said they see little threat to their businesses. ...

Being placed on consecutive short-term contracts in Cambodia’s predominantly female-staffed garment sector is forcing many women to choose between a family and a factory job, unionists and rights groups said yesterday. Ken Chenglang, acting president of the National Independent Federation Textile Union of Cambodia, said many ...

A journalist has filed a complaint with the Pursat provincial court alleging that a soldier threatened to kill him on Sunday after he wrote a series of damning articles linking the soldier to illegal rosewood trafficking, court officials confirmed Tuesday. Both the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces ...

About 30 former employees of now-defunct mobile operator Mfone protested Tuesday outside the office of the company’s liquidator, demanding pay promised to them and more than 1,000 other employees after the operator collapsed last year. Mr. Darin said he was paid 70 percent of his ...

Human rights groups and other members of civil society on Tuesday submitted a letter to Senate President Chea Sim, requesting a meeting over their concerns for three draft judicial reform laws passed last month in the National Assembly. The three drafts must be approved by ...

The Cambodian Ministry of Defense on Tuesday launched a U.S.-aided strategic planning manual with an aim to assist Cambodian strategists to design standardized and effective defense strategic plans. Major Gen. Phat Vibolsopheak, chief of international relations department at the Defense Ministry, said the 17-page instruction manual ...

Housing rights activist Yorm Bopha, who spent nearly a year in jail for leading demonstrations, will receive a reward and recognition for her work. The James Lawson Award, named for an American activist and given for nonviolent achievements, will grant her $6,000 in Boston later ...

Indigenous villagers in Mondolkiri province say relevant authorities that are supposed to crack down on forestry crimes instead collude with logging companies and powerful businessmen, allowing them cut down trees. That has put their forest tribal traditions and livelihoods, which are dependent on forests, in ...

China’s minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun Tuesday held talks with Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng on boosting security cooperation. Guo, also a state councilor, said China and Cambodia have conducted fruitful cooperation on combating telecom fraud, hunting for those who have ...

In three years’ time, Cambodia will have legislation clearly outlining what government information is available to the general public, according to a recently signed memorandum of understanding. Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith and Anne Lemaistre, UNESCO’s representative to Cambodia, signed the memorandum on Friday. The MoU ...

The Council of Ministers last week approved a raft of changes to the country’s insurance laws, a move that industry insiders hope will better reflect the sector’s current state. The draft law, which was prepared by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, has an additional 14 ...

As hit-and-run victim San Chan lies in a hospital bed awaiting justice for his brother’s death, officials from the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, police and traffic police are pointing fingers at one another, while the driver remains at large. A week ago today, Mr. Chan, 18, ...