Law and judiciary

A representative of the Zongtex Garment Manufacturing company in Phnom Penh on Tuesday denied employing workers as young as 15 to make U.S. government clothing, following an exposé by The New York Times on poor standards in factories producing U.S. government attire. On Sunday, The Times ...

The Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court has summoned for questioning three villagers accused of torching in May a shed on disputed land granted to the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem. The case is another example of courts resurrecting longstanding land disputes that had gone ...

A rice trader on Monday filed a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Unit, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cabinet and three ministries alleging that officials in Kompong Cham province had wrongly fined her for an overweight truck after using improperly weighted scales. Saing Darlin had her truck impounded ...

A crackdown on illegal logging in Mondulkiri has yielded more than 50 cubic metres of luxury wood found submerged in a canal and stashed throughout the forest. ...

Two French nationals were attacked and robbed over the weekend in separate incidents near the National Museum at the corner of streets 13 and 178 in Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district, police and friends of the victims said Monday. Following the two robberies, a tourism ...

The Ministry of Water Resources impounded five barges in Kandal province on Saturday for flouting a government ban on sand dredging on the Mekong River, an official said Sunday. Chan Youttha, cabinet chief for Water Resources Minister Lim Kean Hor, said the minister personally led a ...

The Council of Ministers has nullified a 2009 law that set minimum prices on telephone calls, paving the way for regulators to reset the country’s telecommunications prices, which industry executives say are too high. The law, Prakas 232, which has been widely flouted, set a minimum ...

Local human rights group Adhoc has called on the government to investigate the alleged detention and torture of a Cambodian woman at a Bangkok casino where she was employed. In a statement released Friday, Adhoc said the government must push for a “full investigation” into the ...

Four years after the forcible deportation of 20 Uighur asylum seekers from Cambodia to China, an advocacy group has said it remains “deeply concerned” about their fate and has called on China to lift a veil of secrecy surrounding their treatment. In a statement, the World ...

Returning from a state visit to Japan on Tuesday, a member of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government dismissed the possibility that newly upgraded ties with Japan and Cambodia’s decision to join its Asean neighbors in a “freedom of overflight” pact with Tokyo might strain its ...

The Kompong Speu Provincial Court has summoned for trial a married couple accused of encroaching on land excised from a plantation belonging to CPP Senator and businessman Ly Yong Phat, and has issued more than two dozen other summonses and arrest warrants in the past ...

The government plans to extend the country’s still-limited capacity to treat ailing prisoners by building more secure rooms inside provincial hospitals. As part of the General Department of Prisons’ 2014-2018 strategic plan, the Ministry of Interior hopes to have rooms specifically designated for prisoners in each ...

US national Daniel Stephen Johnson was transferred to Prey Sar prison yesterday after being charged on Saturday over the alleged rape of five underage boys – residents of the orphanage he ran without interference from authorities for several months. According to Phnom Penh Municipal Court prosecutor ...

A house in Ratanakkiri owned by a provincial deputy police chief was raided on Saturday, yielding seven cubic metres of luxury timber. Ratanakkiri Provincial Court and Forestry Administration officials carried out the raid on the property where the deputy police chief is the landlord, but he ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Saturday charged Daniel Johnson, an American missionary, with committing indecent acts against five boys under the age of 15 at an orphanage he operated in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district, police said. Johnson, 35, was sent to the court on Wednesday ...

SAMBOR DISTRICT, Kratie Province – A sharply dressed usher in a crisp black shirt, black pants and a shiny black tie escorted guests to one of several bungalow-style, private booths at the Mloub Dong restaurant on a recent evening. While the privacy the restaurant offers is ...

The Ministry of Justice yesterday held the first of what it said would be regular forums soliciting the input of civil society on judicial reforms, and promised a new measure that it maintained would streamline the courts’ workflow. Citing widespread frustration among citizens, Justice Minister Ang ...

Land certificates handed out by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s youth volunteers have been seized by local authorities in some parts of the country and sold on to companies, a forum on land rights was told yesterday, amid reports of rising numbers of land conflicts. Speaking at ...

Thirty people locked in a land dispute with ruling party senator and sugar tycoon Ly Yong Phat received summonses yesterday to appear in Kampong Speu provincial court. Although the summonses don’t list a complainant, some of those called to appear in court next Tuesday said they ...

Kandal provincial authorities and officials from multiple ministries are investigating the apparent theft of historical artefacts from a stupa at Oudong Mountain said to contain some remains of Buddha himself. Relevant authorities were tight-lipped yesterday about which objects were missing, but a local news outlet reported ...

LUMPHAT WILDLIFE SANCTUARY, Ratanakkiri Province – From behind the corrugated metal walls of Daun Penh Agrico’s wood depot, the raspy buzz of a chainsaw rattled through the surrounding forest on Monday afternoon. As the chainsaw revved and cut, a heavy-duty truck packed full of long, sawn ...

Cambodia hopes to legalise undercover investigative techniques – like covert surveillance and officers posing as criminals, which until now have fallen into a murky legal grey area – by next year. At a workshop in the capital yesterday, law enforcement officials and representatives of human rights ...

A man facing defamation charges was questioned in Kandal Provincial Court yesterday following his comments in a report that alleged tycoon Try Pheap was illegally logging. San Sen was quoted in a Cambodian Human Rights Task Force (CHRTF) report last month that implicated the tycoon in ...

Although International Human Rights Day ended in the forceful eviction of protesters from outside the US embassy last night, monks and their supporters who spent days marching to the capital met with no opposition in the morning as they defied a ban on marching to ...