Law and judiciary

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has labeled the trial of two teenagers arrested during the lethal suppression of a garment sector strike in November 12 as “deeply flawed” and said that the pair should be spared prison sentences. In a statement Sunday, the rights organization claims that ...

The government has issued a total of 3.4 million land titles across the country, 500,000 of them since a renewed push personally orchestrated by Prime Minister Hun Sen, according to new figures released by the Land Management Ministry. In a notice posted to its website Friday, ...

Hundreds of prisoners will be pardoned or see their sentences reduced on Tuesday following a request by the Ministry of Interior to the King. The royal pardons and sentence reductions, which benefit 339 inmates, coincide with Pisak Bochea Day, a celebration of the Buddha’s birth. ...

When the 2007 Traffic Law was passed, it required that the myriad private vehicles on the road bearing Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) number plates be removed and switched with civilian plates within one year. But more than six years after this deadline, the sight of ...

The Council of Ministers on Friday passed a sub-decree on the management of adult entertainment clubs and a draft of a new national housing policy to promote home ownership, a cabinet official said. The new Sub-Decree on Management of Adult Entertainment Places, consisting of 25 articles, ...

Customs officials over the weekend said they will shed no further light on Friday’s massive haul of three tons of illegal elephant ivory at Sihanoukville Autonomous Port—Cambodia’s biggest-ever ivory seizure—until investigations are complete and a case can be sent to court. A scan on containers that ...

Police arrested another three union representatives on Friday for allegedly inciting garment workers to strike and protest in front of their factory over the past few weeks, this time in Kandal province. It follows the arrest last week of six representatives of another union ahead of ...

Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan has summoned a student from the country’s top state journalism school for a meeting at his office after she used a post on her Facebook page to question the sense of a guest lecture he delivered last week. Mr. Siphan ...

The National Assembly has scheduled a plenary session on May 20 to discuss three controversial draft laws on judicial reform, a senior ruling party lawmaker confirmed Sunday. The parliamentary meeting will be the third plenary session since last year’s disputed national election, each of which have ...

A trial for two teens charged with intentional violence from a Stung Meanchey riot in November was unfair to the defendants, a statement released yesterday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) says. Calling the trial “deeply flawed”, HRW said the judge in the case showed open hostility ...

Independent union leader Ath Thorn said Sunday he had collected enough money from supporters to pay most of his $25,000 bail to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, and would deliver it to the court Monday. The court has charged Mr. Thorn, president of the Coalition of ...

A rowdy 8-year-old boy has accused his teacher of hitting him over the head with a small whiteboard during class on Thursday, leaving him with a bloody head wound. Sok Kim Heng said yesterday that he spat on another student and, in return, his teacher whacked ...

Friends and family of Canadian journalist Dave Walker, whose badly decomposed body was found on May 1 in Siem Reap province, have issued new statements accusing the Cambodian and Canadian governments of being complicit in what they say was his murder. According to a statement posted ...

Nearly 200 villagers from Kratie province gathered in Phnom Penh Monday, hoping to deliver a petition to the Cambodian Senate and other government agencies in protest of a rubber company’s development there. The villagers, from Snoul district, say a Vietnamese rubber company began developing in ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday advised armed forces and local authorities along border with Thailand to keep calm. Cambodia and Thailand has had a bitter border dispute since July 2008 when the UNESCO added the Cambodia’s Preah Vihear temple to its World Heritage ...

Cambodia’s Supreme Court on Friday upheld a decision refusing bail to 21 people arrested during a deadly worker strike crackdown, a defense lawyer said, as dozens of supporters protested outside, calling the charges against them politically motivated and demanding their release. The top court upheld the ...

Cambodian customs officers on Friday morning confiscated around three tons of elephant tusks at the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port in Southwestern Preah Sihanouk province. In February, customs officers nabbed two Vietnamese men at the Siem Reap International Airport for smuggling 79.5 kg of illegal elephant tusks ...

Media experts warn that Vietnam continues to restrict social media, and Cambodia could be following suit. At a forum in Washington to mark World Press Freedom Day on May 3, panelists said online and traditional media activities have been restricted by Vietnamese authorities. The forum, ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 2012 ban on the allocation of economic land concessions was supposed to halt the unpopular practice of turning over large swaths of property to developers. And going by the numbers last year, it worked. But in the vacuum, according to local rights ...

Dana Beerdsen, a 19-month-old Dutch girl who was critically injured last month in an attack in which her mother was stabbed to death in their Phnom Penh home, died in a Bangkok hospital on Wednesday night, according to police. Lieutenant Colonel Mom Sitha, municipal foreign police ...

City Hall is turning its focus to Phnom Penh’s “anarchic parking” situation. Phnom Penh Governor Pa Socheatvong yesterday said the municipality plans to cancel old contracts awarding private companies the right to charge for parking in certain parts of the city, and introduce new restrictions on ...

A government spokesman warned yesterday that legal action may be taken against the opposition leaders if their “unlawful” campaign rhetoric incites unrest. Tith Sothea, spokesman for the Council of Ministers’ Press and Quick Reaction Unit, said that the government will consider filing complaints against Cambodia National ...

Cambodian authorities have charged nearly half as many villagers in land dispute cases in the first three months of this year as they did in all of 2013, a local rights group said Thursday, adding that most of the rows stemmed from government-granted land concessions. Following ...

The Siem Reap Municipal Court on Tuesday sentenced Cambodian lawyer Mao Tan Eam to two-and-a-half years in prison for purchasing child prostitution, but he will not spend a single day in jail after the court suspended the entire custodial sentence, an official said. Deputy provincial prosecutor ...