Social development

Nearly 200 people from 25 different communities converged on the Mondolkiri Provincial Hall Monday to file complaints and petitions calling for an end to illegal logging and environmental degradation. The action comes two days after armed commune police blocked 16 rights workers and journalists from visiting ...

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 ...

About 50 residents evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood in 2008 and 2009 to make way for a senator’s real estate project once again protested in front of City Hall Monday to demand better compensation. They are among some 3,000 families who were forced ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen used a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh Monday to denounce criticism from civil society groups who say that his government is rushing judicial reforms into law without ap­­propriate public consultation. Speaking at the ceremony for about 1,800 students from the Asia Euro ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday that the cabinet is not obliged by any law to seek suggestions from the civil society. The premier made comments at a graduation ceremony of Asia European University in response to non-government organizations which condemned the approval on April ...

First Sum Tea lost her farm. Then she lost her son. Sum Tea is one of hundreds of farmers who lost her small landholding in 2006 when the Cambodian government granted Phnom Penh Sugar, a company owned by Cambodian tycoon and ruling party senator Ly Yong ...

Environment Minister Say Sam Al met with private firms with land concessions last week to gauge their compliance with government rules and regulations, and adherence to their own contracts. Amid mounting local and international pressure, Prime Minister Hun Sen in mid-2012 ordered a freeze on ...

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 ...

Trade unions may have failed to get a stay-at-home strike for higher wages off the ground after the Khmer New Year earlier this month. But a strike for bonus pay is picking up steam in Svay Rieng Province, where some 20,000 garment workers protested at ...

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 ...

A former civil servant was sentenced on Friday to five years in prison by Kampong Cham Provincial Court for stealing the pensions of 10 retired teachers – a total of $500 – in March 2012. Mang Yusreng, former chief of the Social Affairs Office in Srei ...

Eighteen sacked drivers for the Phnom Penh Sorya Transportation company protested in front of the company’s offices Friday morning calling for their reinstatement and a raise. The drivers say they were fired in mid- and late-April for leading strikes—in which they walked off with the keys ...

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 ...

Ath Thorn, the president of the country’s largest independent labor union, said Friday that he has appealed court orders restricting his unionizing activity and is seeking support from international labor organizations as he faces charges of incitement. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has ordered Mr. Thorn, ...

A would-be tripartite workshop intended to improve the garment sector’s minimum wage setting process closed Friday, with the industry’s most influential player, the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC), boycotting the talks at Phnom Penh Hotel. The two-day workshop would have been the first meeting between ...

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 ...

Cambodia reported 10,000 malaria cases in the first three months of 2014, down 9 percent from about 11,000 cases over the same period last year, a health official said Thursday. ...

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 ...

Government officials and union representatives met behind closed doors Thursday to start hashing out a better way to set the minimum wage for the country’s all-important but troubled garment sector at a workshop brokered by the International Labor Organization (ILO). But what was supposed to be ...