Civil society

Sixteen local NGOs released a joint statement Thursday calling on Prime Minister Hun Sen to publicly repudiate National Military Police Commander Sao Sokha’s January 15 speech in which he said he learned strategy from Adolf Hitler. ...

Abuse, discrimination, exploitation and corruption are endemic in Cambodia’s prisons, spurred on by judicial and penal systems “driven by nepotism”, according to a new report from local rights group Licadho. The report, Rights at a Price: Life Inside Cambodia’s Prisons, which was released yesterday, details a ...

The International Organisation for Migration has told the Cambodian government it is willing to take part in the resettlement of refugees from Nauru if a number of conditions are met.​ ...

Civil society leaders on Sunday called on the country’s two major political parties to scrap plans to ban them from giving media interviews during election campaigns and from issuing statements that “insult” any party. CPP Deputy Prime Minister Bin Chhin and senior CNRP official Kuoy Bunroeun, ...

The Royal University of Phnom Penh plans to make its social work degree available to everyone next year, as young, locally trained graduates look to take the reins from foreign aid workers. RUPP Department of Social Work Faculty member Ung Kimkanika said the move would ...

Thirteen ethnic Montagnards have emerged from the jungles of Cambodia, where they hid for more than seven weeks after entering the country from Vietnam to flee alleged persecution, the United Nations and local authorities said Saturday. Eight of the Montagnards–including one woman–left their jungle hiding ...

Oxfam International, one of the first aid groups to work in Cambodia post-Khmer Rouge, has urged the hundreds of international NGOs (INGO) still operating in the country to consider their future roles and possible exit strategies. Speaking at the launch of two new research reports yesterday ...

The Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) will launch Wednesday a series of short films profiling communties affected by the country’s pervasive and volatile land conflict. The profiles highlights cases from Phnom Penh and four other provinces, and show that insecurity of tenure, the failure ...

An increasing number of Cambodians are dissatisfied with the direction the country is moving toward, according to results from a nationwide survey by the Asia Foundation. The foundation interviewed 1,000 people face to face in May and June of this year—prior to a political deal struck ...

Forty NGOs from around the world have called on the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to begin preliminary examinations into claims that Cambodia’s “ruling elite” were accused of committing crimes against humanity. On October 7, British lawyer Richard Rogers submitted ...

A Tauranga business and a charity have so far raised enough to provide 43 people with freshwater for the rest of their life in Kratie, a rural state of Cambodia. Good Trust, a registered charity where 100 per cent of proceeds goes directly to water projects, ...

After months of negative publicity surrounding its disgraced founder Somaly Mam, anti-trafficking NGO Afesip has taken the first tangible steps to resurrect itself, with a handful of remaining international donors traveling to Cambodia over the past week for “future strategy meetings.” ...

Forty national and foreign NGOs yesterday called on the government to ratify the International Labour Organization’s 2011 Domestic Workers Convention in order to better safeguard the rights of Cambodian domestic workers, both inside and outside of the country. The missive, which says that the Kingdom’s domestic ...

Chan Soveth, a longtime human rights defender, died of a heart attack on Wednesday. Colleagues say he was returning from celebrations to mark International Human Rights Day. He was 51. ...

Staff at the Phnom Penh Municipal Referral Hospital said Tuesday that they had no record of a recent visit from a man who died late last month at the Prey Speu social affairs center, contradicting claims made by a city official. Both a file search by ...

Human rights group (LICADHO) has called for the release of 18 activists who have been wrongfully imprisoned following a recent spate of arrests as Cambodia will celebrate International Human Rights Day on December 10th. In a statement issued today [Monday], the right group also condemns the ...

The Cambodian government should promptly close all centers arbitrarily detaining people outside the criminal justice system, Licadho and Human Rights Watch said today. The abusive nature of these centers was highlighted by the death on November 26, 2014, of a man who was arbitrarily detained ...

Approximately 1,500 young Cambodian people on Saturday performed the “Madison,” a popular dance during Khmer wedding receptions and New Year celebrations, here in order to call for an end of violence against women and girls, an organizer said. Inala Fathimath, a gender program specialist at the ...

Cambodia has performed better than last year in its effort to fight corruption, but it is still slow, an international anti-corruption watchdog said Wednesday.   The index ranks Cambodia 156 out of 175 countries this year, up from a 160 ranking last year. ...

The Cambodian Center for Human Rights said that it would deliver Tuesday a giant photo petition to the Ministry of Justice as part of its annual Campaign to End Impunity. A statement on Monday said that CCHR has collected 263 photos of people holding signs that ...

A UN special rapporteur will take the cause of Cambodia’s land-eviction battles and the abuses faced by those waging them to the UN Human Rights Council, according to a report released today. Michel Forst, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, will file ...

Two ethnic Jarai Montagnards claiming to have fled religious persecution in Vietnam may have been arrested by local police in Ratanakkiri province, a rights worker has said. The UN is seeking to intervene in the case and has requested government cooperation while several more Christian Montagnards ...

After facing heavy criticism for the conditions inside its drug-rehabilitation centres, the Ministry of Health has said it will begin offering an alternative community-based approach at health centres nationwide by 2015. According to Chhum Vanarith, a secretary of state in the Health Ministry, the alternative ...

The International Republican Institute is urging the ruling party and opposition work toward political reform. Jessica Keegan, the group’s Cambodia country director, told VOA Khmer in an interview in Washington that the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and the Cambodia National Rescue Party should seek common ground ...