Human rights

The U.N. and an Australian refugee rights group say a delegation of Cambodian officials arrived Monday in the South Pacific island nation of Nauru, where Australia is holding hundreds of asylum seekers and hopes to convince at least some of them to volunteer to be ...

The trial of two Chinese men and three Cambodian women on charges of human trafficking began in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday after they were arrested in May for allegedly brokering marriages between Cambodian women and prospective grooms in China. ...

Thai soldiers admitted to burning alive two men last week who may have been undocumented Cambodians, Battambang military officials said yesterday. Cambodian officers said their Thai counterparts informed them that on the night of January 7, four Cambodians illegally crossed the border with intentions of evading ...

Opposition lawmaker Mu Sochua said a group of 10 convicted anti-eviction activists on hunger strike at Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison were in a weak state during her visit to the facility Monday. ...

Remaining five hill tribe Montagnards emerged from northeast Cambodia’s jungle on Saturday night after hiding for more than seven weeks since illegally entering Cambodia from Vietnam, a senior human rights activist said Sunday. ...

Thirteen hill tribespeople known as  “Montagnards” have left their jungle hideout in Cambodia and will apply for asylum after crossing from Vietnam to flee persecution, it was announced Sunday. The minority group had for more than seven weeks sought refuge in the jungle in Cambodia’s northeastern ...

Anti-human trafficking police on Monday arrested two men at the Phnom Penh International Airport as they attempted to traffic a woman to China to marry a man there, police said Tuesday. Chinese national Xu Xiandai, 30, and Cambodian Heng Seng, 53, were arrested at 7 a.m. ...

The U.N.’s efforts to locate a group of Montagnards hiding in Ratanakkiri province continued to be hindered Monday as the provincial governor was yet again unavailable to meet its delegation, four days after it traveled to the northeastern province. Despite the delegation’s expectation that it would ...

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 ...

The Cambodian government will allow UN representatives to seek out a group of Montagnards reportedly in hiding in Ratanakkiri province. Interior Minister Sar Kheng gave the green light for UN offices of human rights and refugees to look into the case, where at least 13 Montagnards ...

Opposition CNRP lawmaker Eng Chhay Eang says he will visit Phnom Penh’s Prey Speu social affairs center today to investigate its controversial treatment of detainees following the death of a recent charge. ...

Thousands of Cambodians, including Buddhist monks and garment workers, on Wednesday (Dec 10) rallied across the capital calling for respect for human rights and the release of a group of jailed land activists. On Wednesday around 3,000 people massed outside the parliament building in Phnom ...

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 ...

Hundreds of monks are marching to Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh to mark International Human Rights Day, defying the orders of their own leaders and police and military roadblocks, local media reported Monday. Accompanied by rights campaigners, some of the monks have been walking towards the city ...

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 ...

More than a hundred monks and rights activists marching to Phnom Penh for International Human Rights Day were blocked by soldiers and police at their starting point in Takeo province’s Kirivong district yesterday. ...

A UN delegation met with Ratanakkiri province’s deputy police chief yesterday afternoon to discuss the fate of 13 Montagnard asylum seekers who have been hiding in the province in recent weeks. The provincial administration, however, has continued to call for the group’s deportation. Deputy police chief ...

Ignoring objections and even vague threats made by the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Cambodian activists in South Korea plan to stage a protest on Sunday ahead of a five-day summit Prime Minister Hun Sen is scheduled to attend on December 10. Around 1,500 opposition supporters intend to ...

Cambodian police said Wednesday they were scouring remote northeastern jungles for a group of Vietnamese Montagnards who crossed the border in an apparent attempt to seek asylum. Rights groups say 13 of the hill tribe people, including one woman, fled persecution in Vietnam late last month ...

Cambodian authorities are hunting more than a dozen ethnic minority hill people from Vietnam, drawing international criticism and raising further doubts about Australia’s controversial agreement to send refugees to Phnom Penh. Babar Baloch, a spokesman for the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), warned ...

A team from the United Nations refugee agency traveled to northeast Cambodia Wednesday to meet with 13 ethnic Montagnards seeking asylum in the country after fleeing alleged persecution in Vietnam, according to an agency spokesperson and a member of a local rights group. United Nations High ...

Four more goods made in Cambodia have been linked to exploitative child labour, adding to a mounting list of items the United States considers to be produced in violation of international rights laws. The mounting number of Cambodian goods found to use child labour runs ...

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 ...