Law and judiciary

Phnom Penh City Hall has turned down two requests by non-governmental groups to hold rallies and marches to mark both International Teachers’ Day and the international day for housing rights. Housing Rights Task Force (HRTF), a local NGO, was denied permission to organize a rally at ...

The Court of Appeal will hear the case of former Bavet City governor Chhouk Bundith, who was convicted for shooting and injuring three garment workers but remains at large, at the end of this month, a court official said Wednesday. Although the Svay Rieng Pro­vincial Court ...

One of the four suspects who have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the theft of $2.3 million from Canadia Bank was the head of the bank’s credit section during the time that the embezzlement scheme was carried out, according to a senior adviser ...

Senior CPP members selected nominees for the National Assembly’s nine permanent committees behind closed doors on Tuesday, while the opposition CNRP, which has continued to boycott the Assembly over July’s disputed election, urged some of Cambodia’s foreign donors to immediately sever ties with the government ...

Women’s Affairs Minister Ing Kantha Phavi on Tuesday defended the government’s policies on promoting gender equality and preventing discrimination against women, but conceded that challenges remain in achieving principles set out in the U.N.’s convention to stop discrimination against women. Speaking in Geneva to the U.N. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday heard the case of two port workers and a military police officer charged with stealing more than 8,000 articles of clothing from a shipping container while it was being driven to the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port. The three suspects—Sorn ...

A new set of prakases tacked onto a law that regulates overseas employment recruitment agencies is a “step in the right direction” towards protecting some of Cambodia’s most vulnerable citizens from scams and abuse, local and international NGOs said yesterday. But some remain unconvinced that the ...

Four representatives of villagers locked in a land dispute with the well-connected KDC company have filed a complaint with the Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court after they received death threats. “The anonymous letter was a threat against our lives,” said Reach Seima, one of the representatives, adding ...

Minister of Interior Sar Kheng sent a letter to the National Police last week asking it to step up its search for Chhouk Bandith, the former Bavet town governor convicted of shooting three garment workers at a factory protest last year. Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak ...

Anti-logging activists wrote to the United Nations yesterday to call for the monitoring of a lawsuit in which they accuse hundreds of officials in Kampong Speu province’s Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary of illegal deforestation. The Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organization (NRWPO) listed 241 officials it ...

A man suspected of robbing and shooting two foreign nationals late last month was shot four times on Monday night during a shootout with police before being taken into custody. Police also apprehended a second, uninjured suspect after the shootout. Chea Sovann, 32, and Sa Ravan, ...

King Norodom Sihamoni has signed off on a Royal Decree terminating the positions of every ministry-level adviser in the government except for those of Prime Minister Hun Sen in order to allow recently appointed officials to appoint new advisers. The decree, signed October 1 and obtained ...

Prisons in Banteay Meanchey and Battambang province have been seriously affected by flooding but have not yet been evacuated, according to local rights groups and prison officials. A clogged sewage system has plagued Battambang’s provincial prison, according to Bun Sorn, but extra pumps have alleviated ...

The former manager of Canadia Bank’s credit section has admitted to stealing $2.3 million from the bank’s accounts, the suspect’s lawyer said Tuesday, in what is one of the largest embezzlement schemes ever undertaken in Cambodia’s nascent banking industry. The testimony from Yeth So­pheaktra, 30, to ...

Rights groups on Monday shared their concerns about the treatment of women in Cambodia with member states of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in Geneva. Cambodia last updated the committee—which meets three times a year to assess how member states ...

Police have yet to identify any suspects in a pair of vicious robbery-shootings in Phnom Penh late last month that left an American expatriate and a Japanese tourist hospitalized with gunshot wounds, police said Monday. At about 7 p.m. on September 27, American construction consultant Maurice ...

The National Assembly will hold its first plenary session meeting on Thursday since Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 68 members of parliament last month approved an Assembly president and chairpersons to head the body’s nine committees, and despite the opposition CNRP still refusing to take their ...

A move by the International Labour Organization to name and shame garment producers in Cambodia that flout workers’ rights and safety standards could damage the industry’s reputation and result in a drastic reduction in orders from buyers abroad, according to a senior manufacturing official. Last week, ...

Laos has notified the Mekong River Commission (MRC) that it will go ahead with the construction of the Don Sahong Dam, which environmentalists say could threaten the ecosystem of the Lower Mainstream Mekong and have a severe impact on the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands ...

The former manager of Canadia Bank’s credit section, along with two accomplices at the bank, were charged Thursday with theft and forgery for allegedly embezzling about $2.3 million from ABA and SBC banks, according to municipal court and police officials. “The deputy [municipal court] prosecutor has ...

A clerk at the Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of corruption and bribe-taking, police and Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) officials said, but rights groups said clerks alone are not in a position to determine the course of court cases and that more ...

In Cambodia, there is talk of change. Not just from Hun Sen, the prime minister, who has promised reforms after his party suffered a significant blow in recent elections, but from environmental activists and campaigners, who say there has never before been such an opportunity ...

A mob of 500 villagers beat a man to death in Kampong Cham province yesterday after he allegedly slaughtered his wife and stepdaughter with a pair of scythes and reportedly taunted the assembled crowd with his wife’s severed hand. Police said Laing Pises, 48, used the ...

More than two weeks after the slaying of 29-year-old Mao Sok Chan in clashes at Phnom Penh’s Kbal Thnal overpass, police have yet to launch an internal investigation into the use of force, officials said yesterday. National military police spokesman Kheng Tito said he had no ...