Human rights

All but four garment factories in Svay Rieng province were closed yesterday, as a strike of thousands of workers there continued into its second week, a labour union official said. The strike, estimated to involve about 20,000 people across the province’s Tai Seng and Manhattan special ...

A family locked in a longstanding land dispute with a powerful real estate tycoon claims company guards late on Sunday night once again attempted to burn down their Tuol Kok home. The alleged attempted arson is the latest in a slew of bizarre at­tacks on the ...

Five men in Koh Kong province could be prosecuted for stealing from a construction crew after the group allegedly seized tools in January, preventing the construction team from building fences in their village. Police summonsed the villagers from Kiri Sakor district’s Prek Khsach commune for questioning ...

Opposition lawmaker-elect Lim Kim-Ya filed charges with Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday morning against a government official he claims led an attack on a peaceful crowd at Freedom Park last Monday. Ket Khy, a Cambodia National Rescue Party lawyer, told the Post that Kim-Ya was seeking financial compensation ...

The U.N.’s deputy high commissioner for human rights, Flavia Pansieri—who is on a week­long mission in Cambodia —has been asked to address an arbitrarily enforced ban on public assemblies, which has been in place since January. In a letter dated Monday, Muth Chantha, secretary-general of the ...

The government is refusing to compensate up to 1,000 families forced to wait for income restoration measures after being relocated from their homes for an Asian Development Bank-funded railway rehabilitation project, a previously unreleased action plan from the ADB reveals. The ADB Management Action Plan, released ...

Seventy-four former Khmer Rouge soldiers fighting for land they claim the government granted them in the 1990s have agreed to meet with the military commanders who allegedly sold the parcels for personal profit. The meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, follows a week after a pair representatives for ...

More than 100 opposition supporters gathered in Phnom Penh yesterday morning for training in “defending freedom” ahead of a planned attempt to enter Freedom Park on Wednesday. Opposition lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua, who has been forcibly removed from the park a number of times this month, led ...

The Garment Manufacturers Associations in Cambodia (GMAC) on Sunday urged the government to curb outlawed garment strikes that have occurred this week at Special Economic Zones in eastern Bavet City, which are expected to continue next week. “GMAC is disappointed that the government and local authorities ...

A two-star general in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces was arrested Friday on charges of defamation, police and prison officials said Friday. On Friday, police officers from the Interior Ministry’s penal department arrested Major General Chea Dara, who works at the Ministry of Defense, following a ...

Phnom Penh City Hall has refused labor unions and associations to celebrate 128th International Labor Day (May 1) at Freedom Park. The decision was made during a meeting on Thursday between representatives of labor unions, association and Phnom Penh City Hall officials. ...

One the eve of the trial of 23 people arrested during a garment strike in January, their supporters yesterday expressed concern that politics, rather than the facts, may determine the verdict. Nearly four months after their arrests at protests on January 2 and 3 – the ...

The United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of assembly has called the Cambodian authorities’ continuous blockade of Freedom Park, the enforcement of which saw security guards attack journalists and supporters of opposition lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua on Monday, “deeply disturbing”. “The authorities have no legal basis for ...

Union leaders say they expect upwards of 1,000 people to jam the streets around Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday in a show of support for 23 unionists, workers and bystanders who are on trial for their alleged part in violent protests in Pur Senchey ...

The long-awaited trial of the 23 men arrested during strike demonstrations in early January began this morning at 8 am at Phnom Penh Municipal Court and is proceeding into the afternoon. Before the trial began, police had already blocked off the street in front of the ...

Residents of property development site, Boeung Kok, on Thursday gathered in front of an office of World Bank in Phnom Penh in order to present petition to the World Bank. They were seeking intervention from the World Bank to help solve years-long land dispute in their ...

The appointment of General Sok Phal to head the Interior Ministry’s newly formed department to monitor migrant workers has raised concerns over his close familial connection to a labor recruitment industry fraught with human rights abuses. Gen. Phal’s sister, Ung Seang Rithy, is the owner of ...

Twenty-one labor activists who have been detained in Kampong Cham province since their arrests in January were moved to the main prison outside Phnom Penh on Wednesday. Supporters say the 21 are being detained as a lesson to other would-be demonstrators, after a brutal crackdown ...

Officials with the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Tuesday spoke out for the first time against Australia’s plans to send some of the asylum seekers trying to reach its shores to Cambodia, saying the pending deal was not a “real ...

About 80 villagers calling for the release of two former Khmer Rouge soldiers allegedly arrested for illegally occupying land in Malai district rallied outside Banteay Meanchey Provincial Hall, locals and rights group Adhoc said yesterday. Community representatives Ly Khley and Hoeun Vy were detained on Tuesday ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday ordered embattled union leader Ath Thorn to stay away from the SL garment factory and its workers and to avoid any public gatherings that could “damage public order,” drawing a tight circle around one of the country’s most ...

Two villagers in Kampong Chhnang province’s Kampong Trolach district have fled their homes for safety reasons after getting an alarming summons from police in response to their refusal to accept relocation money from KDC International Company, which has been feuding with locals over land for ...

Exactly who will participate in a workshop to set the minimum wage in the garment sector with the Ministry of Labour this week remained unclear yesterday, with some key figures saying they had not yet been invited. During the workshop, to be held on Thursday and ...

Unrest in the garment sector spread yesterday, as hundreds of workers from Kandal province demonstrated outside their factory. The 700 workers at Unity Fashion factory walked off the job after managers said they would dock wages of workers who did not show up on April 17, ...