Civil society

Monks and their supporters marching to Phnom Penh on a 10-day “Peace Walk,” as part of International Human Rights Day, said Wednesday that pagodas along the way have repeatedly tried to shut them out, and they have scuffled with police on at least one occasion. About ...

Local and international organizations on Tuesday marked International Day of Persons With Disabilities by calling on the government to extend its efforts to employ more disabled people beyond Phnom Penh’s environs. A sub-decree attached to the government’s Disability Law, enacted in July 2009, states that the ...

Representatives from civil society and the opposition gathered yesterday to push for the adoption of an access to information law – a move that comes less than a month after Prime Minister Hun Sen urged the Ministry of Information to hasten its development. Two laws dealing ...

Two people who were quoted in a report implicating tycoon Try Pheap in illegal logging have been issued fresh summonses to appear in Kandal Provincial Court on defamation charges. Sen San and Ouk Sambo were originally scheduled to appear in the court last Friday, but San ...

A semiannual study of defendants’ rights in Cambodian courts released this week found an alarming prevalence of pre-trial detention in cases involving juvenile suspects, who are routinely blended with adult prison populations. The Cambodian Center for Human Rights’ sixth semiannual report of trial rights, which cited ...

Cambodia is now ranked as being perceived by investors as Southeast Asia’s most corrupt country, surpassing Laos and Burma on Transparency International’s annual corruption index. Cambodia ranked 160 of 175 countries in the report, with its index score a mere 20 out of 100. That’s two ...

A senior ruling party official yesterday accused foreign journalists and media outlets in Cambodia of interfering in the Kingdom’s governance and urging political instability. Speaking to reporters in the capital, Cambodian People’s Party lawmaker and National Assembly spokesman Chheang Vun said a number of journalists – ...

Cambodian authorities frequently hold suspects, especially the young, in detention pending trial, even though the law could allow them to be released on bail while awaiting the completion of their judicial proceedings, according to a report released Wednesday. Minor crime suspects are also provided a “worryingly ...

Cambodia will resume international adoptions in 2014, more than four years after suspending them over concerns about child exploitation, an official said Wednesday. Deputy Social Affairs Minister Nim Thoth told reporters that foreigners interested in adopting Cambodian children would be able to make applications in the ...

Cambodian political analysts said Prime Minister Hun Sen needs to make “serious and deep reforms” over the next five years to restore his popularity after his party survived with a slim majority in July’s disputed general election. Sok Touch, deputy director of the Royal Academy ...

Global Witness, a United Kingdom-based NGO, has alleged that Deutsche Bank has dropped the majority of its holdings in a Vietnamese company that operates rubber plantations in Cambodia, amid accusations the firm is involved in land grabbing and illegal logging. In a statement released today, Global ...

Panasonic, a leading manufacturer of electronics, will donate 1,500 solar lanterns to the UNESCO Phnom Penh Office to distribute to the poorest villages in Angkor Park on Tuesday, according to a press release issued by UNESCO. UNESCO will in turn hand the lanterns to the APSARA ...

Villagers in Mondolkiri province filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc on Friday, saying that they had discovered loggers illegally felling trees in their local community forest who claimed to be working for businessman Try Pheap. Mr. Pheap, who owns plantations, mining concessions and special economic ...

Two teenagers charged with intentional acts of violence, damage to public property and insulting public officials in clashes with police during a demonstration by SL Garment Factory workers last month were denied bail Monday. The suspects, 14-year-old Meas Non and 17-year-old Vanny Vanan, were charged by ...

The momentum toward large-scale dams on the Mekong River may be unstoppable, but governments must work fast to mitigate their effects on fisheries and biodiversity or risk long-term food insecurity for millions of people whose lives depend on the river and its tributaries, leading academics ...

Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand have all called on Laos to submit its planned Don Sahong hydropower dam to an intergovernmental assessment. According to the dam’s opponents, the Laos National Mekong Committee has acted unilaterally in the planning of its second Mekong dam, a project they fear ...

The long journey on foot from the provinces to Phnom Penh began yesterday for hundreds of villagers and monks who intend to mark December 10’s International Human Rights Day by protesting outside the National Assembly. Parades of people, expected to grow in size the closer they ...

After nearly two years of silence on its draft NGO Law, the Ministry of Interior on Sunday said it was aiming to have the highly contentious piece of legislation ready for the Council of Ministers early next year and voted on by July. Meas Sarim, deputy ...

Three staff members of a local NGO that campaigns against resource exploitation were charged yesterday with extorting money from loggers in Stung Treng province. The three staffers from the Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organization (NRWPO) stand accused of extorting groups of loggers out of at ...

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation on Thursday gave a talk to some 200 Cambodian youths in Phnom Penh, describing criminal investigation, especially in human trafficking and child prostitution. Various youth from across nine provinces attended the discussion, where they learned how they can participate in ...

Local watchdog groups say they have been forced to take forest protection into their hands, due to a failure of government to do so. “As we have seen: the National Assembly, the Senate and the government do not work,” Ouch Leng, head of the Cambodian Human ...

A national legal aid system is imperative and must be established to offset a widening gap between those who can afford justice and those who cannot, the representative for the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Cambodia said on Friday. In ...

Cambodia must establish an independent, national human rights institution with the power to conduct investigations and sanction those guilty of violations, representatives of the country’s two leading local rights groups said on Friday. A consortium of rights groups met Thursday in Phnom Penh to discuss the ...

With civil society, the opposition and even the ruling party talking more and more about the subject of electoral and judicial reforms in the wake of July’s contested national elections, some groups yesterday gathered to call for reforms in a more modest sector – parking ...