Human rights

Amidst an opposition boycott of the National Assembly, CNRP leaders on Sunday announced to about 10,000 supporters gathered in Phnom Penh their tentative plans to push the one-party CPP government to investigate irregularities in the July election and enact a broad slate of reforms. As patchy ...

A move by the International Labour Organization to name and shame garment producers in Cambodia that flout workers’ rights and safety standards could damage the industry’s reputation and result in a drastic reduction in orders from buyers abroad, according to a senior manufacturing official. Last week, ...

In Cambodia, there is talk of change. Not just from Hun Sen, the prime minister, who has promised reforms after his party suffered a significant blow in recent elections, but from environmental activists and campaigners, who say there has never before been such an opportunity ...

Land covering an area the size of Italy has been taken from indigenous communities around the world by suppliers to the biggest names in the food and drinks industry, according to a major new report. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are among the companies criticised by Oxfam for ...

A mob of 500 villagers beat a man to death in Kampong Cham province yesterday after he allegedly slaughtered his wife and stepdaughter with a pair of scythes and reportedly taunted the assembled crowd with his wife’s severed hand. Police said Laing Pises, 48, used the ...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng has commended the country’s security forces for creating a safe environment during the July 28 election and the post-election period leading up to the convening of the National Assembly last week, according to a letter received Tuesday. In his “letter of appreciation,” ...

More than two weeks after the slaying of 29-year-old Mao Sok Chan in clashes at Phnom Penh’s Kbal Thnal overpass, police have yet to launch an internal investigation into the use of force, officials said yesterday. National military police spokesman Kheng Tito said he had no ...

Opposition leaders Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha joined dozens of monks and hundreds of supporters on Monday for a Pchum Ben ceremony at the memorial stupa in Phnom Penh honoring the 16 people who were killed by a grenade attack on an opposition rally in ...

Activists are skeptical that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen will follow through on a pledge to stop a contentious practice of appropriating rural land for commercial use, an issue that hurt the leader and his party in elections in July. In its new five-year political platform ...

Villagers have accused a CPP commune chief in Ratanakkiri province of threatening four ethnic minority Tampoun men after they filed a complaint against him for allegedly selling off community land to a local businessman. Rocham Norng, a Tampoun villager in Bakeo district, has alleged that Soeung ...

Two monks living a remote pagoda in Kampong Speu province’s Oral district said yesterday that a shot had been fired at their living quarters last Tuesday in what they suspected was a threat motivated by their conservation efforts and participation in an opposition rally. Venerables Sam ...

Supporters of the opposition CNRP and relatives of the 16 men, women and children killed in a grenade attack during a protest rally in 1997, will hold a Buddhist ceremony today at the scene of the blasts in front of the old National Assembly in ...

The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) on Saturday announced that it would launch a mass protest on Oct. 23 in order to submit a petition to the United Nations. “A mass protest will be held on Oct.23 from 3:00-6:00 p.m. at the Freedom Park (in ...

A coalition of 30 NGOs on Friday called on the Government to draft and pass a freedom of information law to overthrow its “culture of secrecy”. The groups said Saturday is the 10th Right to Know Day, but that Cambodians are being denied a “fundamental human ...

With the long-ruling CPP sworn in to govern for another five years despite the opposition CNRP abstaining from sitting in the National Assembly due to election irregularities, a new report argues that imminent threats to Cam­bodia’s future development can only be overcome with significant government ...

Nearly half of defendants lack legal representation, 80 per cent are held in pretrial detention, and a sizeable chunk confess before they get a hearing, according to an online public database released yesterday by the Cambodia Center for Human Rights. The database reveals numerous infringements on ...

Sok Sam Oeun and Born Samnang left Prey Sar prison’s Correctional Center 1 on Thursday for the last time, putting behind them an ordeal that has lasted nearly a decade during which they were wrongfully imprisoned for a total of five years each for the ...

After spending 2,073 days in prison, Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun were exonerated on Wednesday by the Supreme Court of having killed popular union leader Chea Vichea in 2004. Legal expert Sok Sam Oeun of the Cambodian Defenders Project said that although the two ...

Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, the men wrongfully sentenced to 20 years in prison for the 2004 murder of Free Trade Union (FTU) leader Chea Vi­chea, were exonerated Wednesday by the Supreme Court of the crime. Responding to the acquittal, Chea Vichea’s brother, Chea Mony, ...

The Cambodian government has privately pledged that it will pass the long-awaited “three fundamental laws” aimed at reforming the judiciary during the first session of parliament in early 2014, UN rights envoy Surya Subedi said. The laws – which focus on codifying the court’s jurisdiction, laying ...

During an epic speech on Wednesday that lasted for more than six-and-a-half hours, Prime Minister Hun Sen told his newly approved Cabinet that they would be subject to increased public scrutiny as part of a series of reforms to be undertaken by the CPP over ...

U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi on Wednesday wrapped up his appearance before the Human Rights Council in Geneva with a vow to continue assisting Cambodia in improving its judicial system as NGOs provided withering testimony of the situation of rights in the country. A dialogue ...

Cambodia’s Supreme Court ordered the release of two men Wednesday who were wrongly convicted and jailed for the 2004 murder of a prominent opposition activist. The court’s decision to drop all charges came amid renewed calls to free the men, whom leading international rights groups have ...

The National Assembly on Tuesday has issued the list names of chairman, vice-chairman and commission chairman in the National Assembly. Here are the list of the National Assembly’s components in fifth mandate: — Heng Samrin, National Assembly chairman. — Nguon Nhil, National Assembly’s first vice-chairman. — Khuon Sodary, National ...