Human rights

Kompong Chhnang provincial authorities allegedly locked villagers out of the provincial hall after dozens came to deliver a complaint against the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem, before locking out a newly appointed councilor who left the building to talk with them. The villagers ...

Representatives for the 200 Cambodian families suing U.K. sugar firm Tate & Lyle for allegedly profiting off of their stolen land say they have rejected the firm’s latest offer to settle the dispute and are looking forward to their first court date, set for October. The ...

The number of inmates who died in the country’s prisons in the first quarter of the year dipped to nine from 15 during the same period last year, a rights group and the prison department said. From January to April, nine prisoners—five men and four women—reportedly ...

A union activist detained in Svay Rieng province on Sunday for delivering fliers promoting a stay-at-home strike was released after three hours, but police kept the leaflets, he said yesterday. When Kem Chamroeun, 25, of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW) brought a stack ...

Cambodia has been cited as one of 10 countries in which torture and extrajudicial killings are common, in a submission made this week by the Hong Kong-based Asia Legal Resource Center to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. ...

Twenty-three labor activists are free from jail, but Freedom Park remains closed to the public. The park is a government-sanctioned place of protest, but it was closed after opposition demonstrations there in April. Phnom Penh spokesman Long Dimanche said there is “no threat” of protests ...

Cambodia on Friday reported 71 landmine casualties in the first four months of 2014, an increase of 61 percent from 44 casualties for the same period last year. The report by the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority showed that during the January-April period, 10 ...

Twelve families locked in a land dispute in Kampot province blocked a construction company on Wednesday from dumping earth onto fields they maintain are theirs, villagers and a rights worker said Thursday. The villagers say the company began encroaching on their land in 2011, when they ...

Hundreds of families from Kratie province’s Snuol district who were promised new plots of land after a Vietnamese rubber firm evicted them last month have complained that provincial officials are allowing hundreds of interlopers to stake a claim instead. The 405 families were evicted from the ...

Cambodian human rights organizations say they have major concerns over a deal with Australia that could send unwanted refugees to Cambodia. The Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee says Cambodia’s track record of human rights abuse and corruption make people “living on the margins” vulnerable to abuse. Australia ...

Some 400 students, monks and activists were stopped from a peaceful march for Environmental Day on Thursday, as they sought to deliver petitions to the Ministry of Environment and other institutions calling for an end to deforestation. Cambodia’s forests provide many services to the rural poor, ...

Opposition leaders brought politics to the forefront of a ceremony to mark yesterday’s anniversary of France’s official transfer of the former Kampuchea Krom provinces to Vietnam in 1949. Speaking to a crowd of hundreds of monks, Khmer Krom and Khmer attendees at Samaki Rainsey pagoda in ...

A youth group plans to march in support of World Environment Day today, despite being told not to by municipal authorities. ...

Despite sustained levels of high economic growth, most people in Cambodia are still eating rice at every meal, with little meat, fish or vegetables, meaning undernutrition will remain high and stunting common among children if the government does not scale up targeted health programs, a ...

Authorities in Mondulkiri decided to switch a swearing-in ceremony for two newly elected Keo Seima district councillors to a commune hall after the opposition objected to it being held at the home of the district’s pro-ruling party governor, officials said. Khum Kan said he and a ...

Before he was arrested in January, Vorn Pov and the union he created were not widely known outside of activist circles. But when he emerged from Phnom Penh’s CC1 prison on Friday, he walked away as one of the highest-profile unionists in the country, and a ...

Being placed on consecutive short-term contracts in Cambodia’s predominantly female-staffed garment sector is forcing many women to choose between a family and a factory job, unionists and rights groups said yesterday. Ken Chenglang, acting president of the National Independent Federation Textile Union of Cambodia, said many ...

A journalist has filed a complaint with the Pursat provincial court alleging that a soldier threatened to kill him on Sunday after he wrote a series of damning articles linking the soldier to illegal rosewood trafficking, court officials confirmed Tuesday. Both the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces ...

With authorities in Kratie province beginning to hand out plots of land on a social concession to 301 families involved in a high-profile dispute resolved last week, villagers at the center of the dispute said Tuesday that opportunists are joining the queue. Since Sunday, authorities have ...

When Pang Vunny walks around his rented room just off of Veng Sreng Boulevard, he waves his hand from side to side in front of him, like a man feeling his way in the dark. Ever since he was arrested and badly beaten on January 2 ...

Police yesterday morning blocked more than 1,000 garment workers as they tried to march from their Por Sen Chey district factory to the Ministry of Labour to plead for intervention. Management at the Ocean Garment factory informed staff on May 24 that it would close for ...

Housing rights activist Yorm Bopha, who spent nearly a year in jail for leading demonstrations, will receive a reward and recognition for her work. The James Lawson Award, named for an American activist and given for nonviolent achievements, will grant her $6,000 in Boston later ...

Villagers who claim a development project in Russey Keo district has already taken a bite out of their land said yesterday that they fear the plan will swallow the rest of their property, as they filed petitions and met with local authorities. Members of 80 families ...

When Ros Srey Pich was 19, she signed a contract with a recruitment agency that would send her to work as a maid in Malaysia. The recruitment agency, Job Asia, had sourced the teenager from what is now Tbong Khmum province, telling her poor family that ...