Social development

The Cambodian government is carrying out a new wave of arrests of opposition party and social activists. Cambodia’s donors should speak out against the government’s harassment, arbitrary detention, and summary trials of peaceful protesters and the government should end the crackdown. The crackdown has ...

Civil society groups have condemned the arrest, detention and conviction of seven Boeung Kok land activists, following their protests earlier this week outside Phnom Penh City Hall. Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday charged them with the violation of traffic law by blocking a public ...

Cambodia has again ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world with the release of global anti-bribery association TRACE’s bribery risk index. According to the index, titled the TRACE Matrix and released on November 11, Cambodia is the fifth most at risk country ...

A Cambodian court on Tuesday sentenced seven female land rights activists, including a 75-year-old woman, to one year in prison each for blocking traffic during a protest. Judge Mong Mony Sophea of Phnom Penh Municipal Court ruled the women were guilty of “creating a public ...

Like many developing countries, Cambodia’s mainly agricultural society is changing fast, driven by urbanization and falling fertility rates. As young workers move to the cities, older people are staying back in the villages, where they have little support. Although former civil servants and soldiers get ...

Representatives of Oddar Meanchey villagers who allegedly lost their homes in a 2008 land grab by Thai-owned sugar giant Mitr Phol are hopeful a settlement may soon be reached after they testify before Thai human rights officials today. Witnesses representing more than 400 families are slated ...

46 people were killed, and 197 others were injured in road accidents from 4-8 November 2014, up from 29 killed and 117 injured over the same period last year, according to a report of General Commissariat of National Police on Monday. ...

With agriculture still the mainstay of its economy, Cambodia is seeking to reform rural communities in partnership with Korea to shore up residents’ livelihoods and boost grain exports. The Southeast Asian country is seeking to follow in the footsteps of the “Saemaeul Undong,” or New Community ...

A campaign organised by Cambodians has led the country’s first vice-president of the National Assembly to urge Australia to back down from its bid to resettle refugees there. Kem Sokha said in a letter to the Australian Ambassador to Cambodia, Alison Burrows, that the deal to ...

The National Assembly’s anti-corruption commission submitted a letter to the Phnom Penh Municipal Hall last week requesting an update on the resolution of the long-running dispute between evicted Borei Keila villagers and development firm Phan Imex. ...

As about 60 percent of the tens of thousands of students who took the national high school exam—some twice—this year cope with failure, Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said this week the dismal grades would only have a “minor impact” on university admissions and jobseekers. ...

A group of activist monks say they will force CPP lawmaker Chheang Vun to apologize for a heated discussion he had with a monk on Monday if he tries to enter one of their pagodas in the future. ...

Two outspoken critics of Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen are to be dragged to court this month on vague charges of “incitement to commit a crime,” but the defendants say they have done nothing illegal. Prominent activist monk Luon Sovath received a summons dated Oct. 22 ...

Police arrested a woman on suspicion of human trafficking in Tbong Khmum province’s Suong City on Monday, after the woman was found with a teenage girl whose parents had raised the alarm with local authorities once she went missing in Ratanakkiri province, officials said Tuesday. ...

As the new public school year gets under way this week, grade 12 students reeling from en masse failure at the national exam have a choice to make: repeat their grade or forfeit their diploma. In total, just 33,997 test-sitters, or 40.6 per cent of ...

Two Vietnamese women were sentenced yesterday by Phnom Penh Municipal Court to two-and-a-half years in prison each for trafficking five Vietnamese women to have sex with wealthy men in a hotel. ...

The head of the country’s anti-graft body has said he has received two death threats since the unit responsible for directing investigations into public and private-sector corruption was established in 2010. ...

A 60-year-old woman was injured and sent to hospital yesterday when police cracked down on anti-eviction protesters blocking a busy bridge in Koh Kong province, villagers said. More than 100 villagers locked in a dispute with the company that manages the Koh Kong Special Economic ...

Kem Sokha, first vice president of the National Assembly and vice president of Cambodia National Rescue Party, has asked Prime Minister Hun Sen to reconsider the transfer of refugees from Nauru to Cambodia. ...

About 40 security guards armed with axes and AK-47s and working for the Chinese-owned Union Development Group (UDG) on Sunday demolished the homes of three villagers who claim to own land on UDG’s sprawling $3.8-billion beachside tourist development in Koh Kong province, villagers said. ...

Ethnic Tumpoun residents from Ratanakkiri’s Banlung district sent petitions to authorities yesterday to protest plans to erect a Buddha statue at Yeak Loam Lake, saying it will bring bad luck to their villages. ...

Local and international NGOs yesterday rallied behind the inaugural United Nations-declared International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists by urging the government to bring perpetrators to justice. Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said yesterday that the government was not responsible for any ...

Though the Ministry of Education is reforming its system which resulted in only 40 percents of the high school students across the country passed the exam this year, president of Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association Mr. Rong Chhun said that Cambodia education system is linked ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Saturday appealed to students to study hard to develop their own abilities to compete in regional job markets as the ASEAN will turn into a community by the end of 2015. ...