Law and judiciary

A young couple has confessed to trafficking Cambodian women to be sold to men in China after they were arrested at the Phnom Penh International Airport Tuesday night while preparing to board a flight to Shanghai with their two latest victims, police said. ...

A lawyer for four unionists who were handed suspended 18-month prison sentences for blocking a road last year filed an appeal with the Svay Rieng Provincial Court on Wednesday. ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has received a complaint from 22 Cambodians who say the lender is falling short in its efforts to fix the mistakes it has made in planning and carrying out its ongoing rehabilitation of the country’s dilapidated railway tracks. ...

Nearly 60 illegal Vietnamese migrant workers were arrested by immigration police Wednesday during raids on six furniture workshops and a coffee shop in Phnom Penh’s Chamkar Mon district, an immigration official said. ...

Foreign diplomats this week have called for increased vigilance and caution on Cambodia’s coast, partcularly in places such as Sihanoukville, Koh Rong and Kampot, following a spike in serious crimes against foreigners. ...

Police in Koh Kong province on Wednesday arrested 17 people—including four rights workers—near the provincial courthouse as protesters continued to call for the release of three jailed environmental activists, according to officials. The group was released shortly after 6 p.m. ...

The Court of Appeal yesterday ruled to keep opposition Senator Hong Sok Hour in prison, rejecting a bid by his lawyers to have his charges dismissed and arrest ruled illegal. ...

The Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a lower court’s decision to jail an opposition senator, who is accused of posting false border maps online, an offense Prime Minister Hun Sen has likened to “treason.” ...

Police in Koh Kong province on Wednesday detained at least 17 people, who had been protesting the detention of three environmental activists. ...

Every evening, Seu Rin takes his family’s wooden fishing boat down the Teuk Chhu River to the waters of the Cambodian coast. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday sentenced the owner of a massage parlor to five years in prison for prostituting a 16-year-old girl and four women at his establishment earlier this year. ...

A family calling for what a rights group says is a long overdue investigation into the disappearance of their son during a violent demonstration in Phnom Penh some 19 months ago has been encouraged – if somewhat indirectly – to file a formal complaint with ...

Two days after four men were repatriated to Cambodia following their escape from a cargo ship docked in the Philippines, an official at the maritime school where the group studied questioned the veracity of the reports of mistreatment. ...

Som Sitha, a local welder, was sentenced to five years in prison yesterday by the Phnom Penh Court of First Instance yesterday, for passing counterfeit money. ...

Khemara Phoumint City deputy governor Pen Bunchhouy on Tuesday issued a letter to a group of protesters demanding that they vacate the area in front of the Koh Kong Provincial Court by Wednesday, threatening “action” if they refused. ...

A group of protesters demanding the release of three jailed environmental activists in Koh Kong province clashed with authorities on Tuesday, as they attempted to file a petition to the residence of the provincial governor. ...

Police believe the two prime bombing suspects in the Erawan and Sathon pier explosions are hiding in Cambodia and have asked Phnom Penh authorities to hunt them down, a Crime Suppression Division (CSD) source said Monday. ...

More than 30 journalists in Ratanakkiri province have written to the Club of Cambodian Journalists (CCJ) about what they described as a threatening letter sent by the provincial governor last week in which he said journalists should stop extorting money from illegal loggers. ...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court on Monday denied bail to three jailed activists from environmental NGO Mother Nature who were charged last mo nth with threatening to destroy barges operated by a sand dredging company, their lawyer said. ...

Phnom Penh authorities are purging the streets of illegal outdoor advertisements that they say are clogging up the city’s sidewalks. ...

About 80 protesters marched in Cambodia’s southwestern Koh Kong province on Monday to demand the release of three activists detained earlier this month for interfering with sand-dredging operations blamed for local pollution and riverbank collapse, sources said. ...

Twenty-two Chinese nationals were arrested at a rented villa in Svay Rieng City on Saturday on suspicion of extorting money from people overseas using Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, technology, police said Sunday. ...

Another group of families living along Cambodia’s dilapidated railway tracks is filing a complaint with the compliance review panel of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), accusing the lender of failing to abide by its own resettlement policies. ...

Police in Kompong Thom province arrested two people on Saturday night when a group of about 30 villagers attempted to free their vehicles from Forestry Administration officials who had confiscated them, police said Sunday. ...