Law and judiciary

The Labor Ministry on Tuesday defended its failure to act on the results of its own study, which in November found that the minimum livable wage for garment factory workers is between $157 and $177. In its annual report, the ministry listed its wage study, carried ...

The Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a joint memo yesterday advising recipients to take measures to ban smoking in public places. The “circular” is the first of its kind in Cambodia, and is to be distributed by all government ministries in ...

The Cambodian government must immediately and unconditionally release the 21 garment workers and human rights defenders who have been detained since early January, FIDH and its member organizations Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC) and Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human ...

Prak Sovannary tries to put on a brave face. She has just heard that two of 23 men arrested during a violent crackdown on garment worker protests in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, last month have unexpectedly been released on bail.Her husband, Vorn Pao, a prominent activist and union leader, is not ...

UN Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai has asked the government of Cambodia to lift a ban on public gathering that has been in force for a month. A statement also said Kiai met and raised the issue of the blanket protest ban with Secretary of State for ...

Cambodian bloggers and journalists often self-censor out of fear that they could face legal or physical threats, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights said in a report on freedom of expression released yesterday. The policy brief, a summary of six roundtable discussions held over the past ...

At least 11 people were murdered during domestic disputes or committed suicide after suffering domestic violence in the past two months, local rights group Adhoc said in a statement Monday. Only two perpetrators were charged in these crimes, Adhoc said, highlighting the lack of law enforcement. “Adhoc ...

Independent radio station owner Mam Sonando filed his latest request with the Information Ministry on Monday, requesting a TV license and a radio relay station to push his popular radio broadcasts farther into the provinces. Mr. Sonando, the owner of Beehive Radio and a longtime government ...

More than a dozen ethnic minority communities from Cambodia’s northeast filed a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) on Monday, accusing it of breaking its own safeguard policies by investing in rubber plantations they say are stealing their land and illegally logging their forests. The ...

Hang Mao was among more than 11,000 Phnom Penh public school teachers who were told two weeks ago that corruption in the classroom would no longer be tolerated. The message came from senior city officials, including Phnom Penh Governor Pa Socheatvong and municipal education director Chea ...

Sixteen unions threatened Monday to organize a nationwide strike if the 21 activists and protesters jailed following garment industry protests on January 2 and 3 are not released on bail Tuesday. The unions also called for charges against the 21 prisoners, 16 of whom began a ...

Defence attorneys will now turn to the Supreme Court after a Court of Appeals judge denied bail this morning for all 21 people still detained from clashes with authorities during garment strike demonstrations last month. The presiding judge said he decided not to allow bail based ...

A brigadier general in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) whose home and rubber plantation in Mondolkiri province were raided by police over the weekend said Monday that he was not responsible for the dozens of pieces of illegal luxury wood confiscated during two separate ...

Phnom Penh’s traffic police officers, whose reputation for bribe taking is renowned, will soon be monitored by a new mobile police unit to ensure they uphold the law, the Ministry of Interior said. The Special Team Monitoring Traffic Law Enforcement will ensure that traffic police are ...

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 ...

The British Embassy in Phnom Penh on Monday sponsored a training course on company and insolvency law for 150 commercial judge trainees with the aim of supporting legal and judicial reform in Cambodia. The workshop is intended to train Cambodian commercial judge trainees on English ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has issued a directive for the ministries of Public Function and Finance to cooperate with state institutions to ensure that civil servants are paid by the fourth week of every month. The directive, signed by Mr. Hun Sen and dated January 29, ...

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 ...

Newly approved plans by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to fix mistakes it made on a $143 million railway project appear to water down recommendations proposed by the Bank’s own review panel, and could impose the costs of the plan on the very families who ...