Social development
Human rights
Concern for children as Cambodian workers begin to flood back
Cambodian workers are migrating back to Thailand en-masse following a mass exodus last month in the wake of the coup. This movement has sparked safety concerns for young children travelling alongside their parents, says World Vision, one of the world’s largest aid agencies. “Our staff working ...
The Nation News Staff
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Concern-for-children-as-Cambodian-workers-begin-to-30238410.html
Police shooting: Charges for intentional murder set
A Mondulkiri military police officer has been charged with intentional murder after allegedly shooting and killing a man who ignored an order to stop his car while passing through a protected forest in the province’s O’Raing district, Mondulkiri provincial prosecutor Khout Sopheang said yesterday. ...
Vong Sokheng
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/police-shooting-charges-intentional-murder-set
Villagers demand dam open its sluice gate
More than 100 villagers in Battambang province’s Sangke district whose rice crops are threatened by drought protested twice last week, calling on local authorities to force the Chinese company building an irrigation dam in the area to open the sluice gate to flood the parched ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-demand-dam-open-its-sluice-gate-63941/
Tycoon threatens to have journalists shot dead
A glass-manufacturing tycoon on Saturday threatened to shoot dead two local journalists as they were covering a dispute he was having with another businessman in Phnom Penh, according to a report posted on the National Police website. The journalists, from Cambodia Express News and Bayon TV, ...
Eang Mengleng
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/tycoon-threatens-to-have-journalists-shot-dead-63937/
Work continues at contested KDC site
A company owned by the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem forged ahead with its construction of a concrete wall around a swath of disputed land in Kompong Chhnang province Friday, despite a call from the U.N.’s human rights envoy on Thursday that ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/work-continues-at-contested-kdc-site-63906/
Migrants told to get permits
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday called on all undocumented Cambodians in Thailand to register for a legal work permit at one of that country’s newly opened one-stop service centres. Thailand’s junta began piloting the latest temporary registration centres at the end of June and ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/migrants-told-get-permits
Ocean fight looks to the government
Days after a Phnom Penh garment factory refused to abide by an Arbitration Council decision in favour of its employees, more than 1,000 workers are expected to demonstrate in front of the Ministry of Labour today. ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ocean-fight-looks-government
At border, authorities get in way of activists
Soldiers and police blocked a group of activists and monks in Kandal province’s Koh Thom district from visiting a section of the Cambodia-Vietnam border on Friday, activists said yesterday. Oeu Narith, president of the Peace Youth Group, said armed forces stopped a group of about 200 ...
Meas Sokchea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/border-authorities-get-way-activists
Getting on the same page
In what is shaping up to be the first of several pivotal garment wage talks, unions are to meet for the first time today to discuss the amount they should request for next year’s minimum wage – but labour leaders and observers say coming to ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/getting-same-page
Villagers hold ceremony to curse minister’s wife, officials
Villagers in Kompong Chhnang province involved in a long-running land dispute with a minister’s wife took their grievances to the spirit world this weekend, staging a two-day ceremony during which they cast traditional curses on company officials and local authorities they say have wronged them. The ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-hold-ceremony-to-curse-ministers-wife-officials-63928/
Make park free again, urges CNRP
Elected opposition lawmakers will today call on Interior Minister Sar Kheng to lift the ban on gatherings at Freedom Park and release the results of a government investigation into deadly violence at a garment protest in early January. ...
Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/make-park-free-again-urges-cnrp
Global brands linked to latest shamed garment factory
Italian sportswear brand Kappa and U.S.-based retail giant Walmart apparently source clothing from the latest addition to the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) list of low-compliance factories, according to a union leader at the factory who provided the branded tags from the clothing her members cut ...
Sun Heng and Holly Robertson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/global-brands-linked-to-latest-shamed-garment-factory-63900/
Kandal villagers refuse to give up land
More than 60 people in Kandal province on Thursday protested the provincial court’s questioning of seven villagers who refused to thumbprint documents handing over their land to a dealer who claims to own it. Lim Kea, the land dealer, says she bought about 155 hectares of ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-refuse-to-give-up-land-protest-court-action-63877/
Envoy calls out KDC firm
United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights Surya Subedi has called on politically connected development company KDC International to halt its project in Kampong Chhnang province. Following violent clashes between KDC security guards and protesters on Monday, Subedi released a statement yesterday that calls on all ...
Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/envoy-calls-out-kdc-firm
Thais detain ‘large number’
A large group of Cambodian migrants were rounded up and detained in a Bangkok prison at the end of May, where many still remain, Thai officials told the Post yesterday. Separate unconfirmed reports that at least 130 Cambodians had been in detention for more than a month emerged ...
Alice Cuddy and Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/thais-detain-%E2%80%98large-number%E2%80%99
Workers protest after factory ignores arbitrator
About 400 workers protested and burned tires outside the Ocean Garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district on Thursday after the factory failed to follow an Arbitration Council ruling from Wednesday to give the workers $120 each in furlough pay since the factory suspended ...
Sek Odom
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/workers-protest-after-factory-ignores-arbitrator-63891/
Military police officer accused
A military police officer has been arrested and will be sent to court, while two others remain under questioning, after an unarmed man was shot dead on Wednesday night while travelling in a car through protected forest in Mondulkiri’s O’Raing district, officials said. Two military police ...
Sen David and Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/military-police-officer-accused
B Kak factions file competing lawsuits over clash
Rival factions in the increasingly bitter dispute over land in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood filed lawsuits against each other at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday over a clash late last month. The two sides, in what once was a unified front against the neighborhood’s ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/b-kak-factions-file-competing-lawsuits-63868/
Land concession woes aired
Village representatives in Ratanakkiri yesterday shared their land grievances with the European Union ambassador, requesting he relay to the government their appeal that no further 99-year land concessions be granted to private companies. Although the Post was not permitted to attend the full two-hour meeting, NGOs present at ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/land-concession-woes-aired
Protest leads to second chance on nat’l exams
Amid strict reforms to guard against rampant cheating on the high-stakes national exam, education officials yesterday showed surprising leniency towards underperforming grade 12 students. In a notice released yesterday, the Ministry of Education instructed upper secondary schools to hold re-examinations for grade 12 students who failed ...
Chhay Channyda and Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/protest-leads-second-chance-nat%E2%80%99l-exams
Factory wage rallies heat up
More than 1,000 workers held a demonstration in front of Ocean Garment factory in the capital yesterday, burning tyres and blocking the road in protest against the management’s refusal to abide by a ruling that workers be paid in full for a one-month closure. On May ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/factory-wage-rallies-heat
US criticises SE Asia on rights
Lawmakers reviewed the “troubling” state of human rights in Southeast Asia Wednesday and criticised Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. But they reserved some of their toughest words for Myanmar, demanding an end to United States concessions to its quasi-civilian government. While no lawmakers mentioned Wednesday’s presidential ...
Bangkok Post News Staff
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/world/419849/us-lawmakers-criticise-vietnam-cambodia-myanmar
Cambodian Court Orders New Probe Into Dissident’s Call to Shoot ‘Dictator’
A Phnom Penh court on Thursday agreed to a prosecution request to consider filing more serious charges against a U.S.-based Cambodia dissident Sourn Serey Ratha accused of instigating an armed revolt against Prime Minister Hun Sen. Sourn Serey Ratha, who leads the Khmer People Power Movement ...
Parameswaran Ponnudurai
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/court-07102014203809.html
Easy currency: Poverty and abuse in Cambodia's 'virginity trade'
Danet* is fourteen, and lives in a house built on wooden stilts, with no walls, and only tarpaulin for shelter. The ‘virginity trade’ is rampant in Cambodia, particularly in the capital, and is “a big problem”, says Tim Huon from Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE), ...