Crime and law enforcement

The trial of 23 men arrested at violent demonstrations in early January continues at 8am today, and unionists are planning on rallying outside the court in a show of solidarity. About 100 union members will join staff from the Cambodian Labour Confederation and the Coalition of ...

A grenade was thrown into the home of Kompong Thom Provincial Court deputy prosecutor Say Nora on Saturday night but the official escaped injury as he was not at home when the device exploded, police said. Provincial police chief Phan Sopheng said the attack was an ...

The Interior Ministry is seeking 478 students to work in prisons and offices across the country, according to an announcement posted online Monday. The ministry’s message, posted to the website of the National Committee for Sub-National Democratic Development, calls for 80 candidates to work as prison ...

A technical error caused 57 teachers in Oddar Meanchey province to be shortchanged when collecting overtime salaries, said an education official who promised the problem will be rectified by the end of May. A teachers’ union on Monday asked the Ministry of Education to address some ...

Sergei Polonsky, a Russian fugitive and former billionaire real estate magnate who was recently released from prison in Cambodia, has grand plans for a string of islands off the coast of Sihanoukville. Less than a month after the Supreme Court refused to extradite him to Russia ...

The U.N.’s special rapporteur on freedom of assembly and association, Maina Kiai, has sent his third thematic report to the U.N. Human Rights Council following trips to various countries, including a three-day visit to Cambodia in February. The report focuses on groups that Mr. Kiai, a ...

Dara Raksmey, the owner of a pharmacy of the same name on Phnom Penh’s Street 294, keeps a record of every can of Dumex baby formula she sells. “If you buy six large cans you get a scooter and if you buy 12 large cans you ...

A teachers’ union has accused education officials in Oddar Meanchey province’s Anlong Veng district of stealing 21 million riel, or about $5,200, that had been slated as overtime payments for primary school teachers. In a letter sent to the Education Ministry on Monday, the Cambodia Independent ...

Authorities in Stung Treng province discovered and confiscated a haul of luxury wood that was being transported in three trucks on Sunday night from the protected Virachey National Park, officials said Tuesday. Provincial deputy police chief Yorn Din said the trucks were stopped and searched as ...

About 50 Cambodian youths were prevented by city security personnel from performing a peace march in the capital on Tuesday. The youth, from the Working Group for Peace, had hoped to hold a non-violent march near Wat Phnom, a city landmark, to the Royal Palace, ...

Russian businessmen Nikolai Doroshenko and Sergei Polonsky are locked in a legal dispute over Sihanoukville’s Victory Beach following Mr. Polonsky’s release from prison last month, according to copies of court documents obtained Monday. The Preah Sihanouk provincial court has temporarily prevented Mr. Doroshenko from transferring the ...

Cambodia’s exports of protected rosewood and other high-value timber to China more than tripled last year, according to U.N. figures cited in a new report that blames lax law enforcement across the Mekong region and skyrocketing demand in China for pushing some species to the ...

A journalist with Voice of Democracy (VOD) who was badly beaten by security forces at the site of a planned demonstration in the capital earlier this month left for Thailand yesterday for an operation, and plans to file suit against his attackers next week, he ...

After being presented with statistics showing a more than 100 per cent rise in petty crime against foreigners, Minister of Interior Sar Kheng yesterday called on police officials to look into what’s causing the problem. Nicolas Baudouin, a spokesman for the French Embassy, confirmed that a ...

The Kandal Provincial Court will question five prisoners next month over the theft of 2,500-year-old relics of the Buddha from the top of Odong mountain in December to ascertain if they were actually involved, a court official said Monday. Lim Sokuntha, an investigating judge at the ...

A worker with the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) has been intimidated and received death threats while trying to document the plight of three families involved in a bitter land dispute with a developer in the country’s capital, according to the center. The worker, Vann ...

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has labeled the trial of two teenagers arrested during the lethal suppression of a garment sector strike in November 12 as “deeply flawed” and said that the pair should be spared prison sentences. In a statement Sunday, the rights organization claims that ...

Hundreds of prisoners will be pardoned or see their sentences reduced on Tuesday following a request by the Ministry of Interior to the King. The royal pardons and sentence reductions, which benefit 339 inmates, coincide with Pisak Bochea Day, a celebration of the Buddha’s birth. ...

When the 2007 Traffic Law was passed, it required that the myriad private vehicles on the road bearing Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) number plates be removed and switched with civilian plates within one year. But more than six years after this deadline, the sight of ...

Customs officials over the weekend said they will shed no further light on Friday’s massive haul of three tons of illegal elephant ivory at Sihanoukville Autonomous Port—Cambodia’s biggest-ever ivory seizure—until investigations are complete and a case can be sent to court. A scan on containers that ...

Police arrested another three union representatives on Friday for allegedly inciting garment workers to strike and protest in front of their factory over the past few weeks, this time in Kandal province. It follows the arrest last week of six representatives of another union ahead of ...

A trial for two teens charged with intentional violence from a Stung Meanchey riot in November was unfair to the defendants, a statement released yesterday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) says. Calling the trial “deeply flawed”, HRW said the judge in the case showed open hostility ...

Independent union leader Ath Thorn said Sunday he had collected enough money from supporters to pay most of his $25,000 bail to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, and would deliver it to the court Monday. The court has charged Mr. Thorn, president of the Coalition of ...

Friends and family of Canadian journalist Dave Walker, whose badly decomposed body was found on May 1 in Siem Reap province, have issued new statements accusing the Cambodian and Canadian governments of being complicit in what they say was his murder. According to a statement posted ...