Legal and judicial system

On the sidelines of a government event marking International Labor Day, Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng on Thursday blamed recent strikes in Bavet City on unnamed provocateurs, but said efforts were underway to resolve the dispute. He also said that a government-ordered shutdown of the 30-plus ...

Three people have filed separate complaints against a Phnom Penh district official, accusing him of ordering violence in a clash between security forces and bystanders near Freedom Park last week. At least 10 people were injured in clashes last Monday, as opposition member Mu Sochua staged ...

Police in Svay Rieng province on Tuesday arrested a garment worker for allegedly breaking a car window during a strike that turned violent in Bavet City the day before, and have filed complaints to the provincial court against two union representatives accused of defamation. The arrest ...

The manager of Giant Ocean International, a now-defunct recruitment firm notorious for abuse scandals, was sentenced yesterday to 10 years in jail for trafficking hundreds of Cambodian fishermen to work in slave-like conditions overseas. Taiwanese national Lin Yu-shin, who ran the firm, was arrested in May ...

About 30 villagers in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district staged a protest Tuesday morning against tycoon Sok Kong, whom they accuse of piping dredged sand into their farmland and fishing ponds. Fourteen families occupying 21 hectares of land in Prek Pra commune have been locked in a ...

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 ...

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 ...

A two-star army general was arrested Friday on charges of defamation because he lost a court case over a dispute with a land broker and a formerly high-ranking police official, his lawyer said. Major General Chea Dara’s lawyer, Put Theavy, said yesterday that the dispute ...

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 ...

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 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 ...

A 26-year-old woman who allegedly disfigured her husband’s face and body in an acid attack Tuesday has been charged and sent to pre-trial detention in Banteay Meanchey province, police said Thursday. Tor Rachany is accused of pouring half a liter of strong acid over her husband, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Two union leaders were summonsed and questioned by a municipal court prosecutor yesterday over allegations they illegally detained the boss of a packaging factory in Por Sen Chey district’s Choam Chao commune during a strike. According to Phnom Penh Municipal Court deputy prosecutor Ek Chheng Huoth, ...

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 ...

Officials from the opposition CNRP announced Tuesday that they will file lawsuits against deputy Daun Penh district governor Sok Penhvuth, who on Monday ordered district security guards to attack a small and peaceful group of CNRP supporters near Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park. Speaking at a press ...

The Court of Appeal on Tuesday upheld a 2012 conviction of encroaching on public land, but significantly reduced the sentence, against businesswoman Chhin Sokountheary for illegally filling in part of a Phnom Penh lake. Ms. Sokountheary—also known as Grandma Crocodile for the crocodile farm she owns—was ...

Embattled union leader Ath Thorn yesterday said that he had begun a fundraising effort, trying to come up with $25,000 in bail money by the end of the week. Thorn, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (C.CAWDU), said union members would begin ...

Forestry officials arrested four men and confiscated two pickup trucks containing illegally logged luxury timber en route to Vietnam on Sunday in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district before releasing both the men and the timber after fining them thousands of dollars, officers and a rights group representative ...

The justice minister yesterday defended three long-awaited laws on judicial reform which were approved by the Council of Ministers last week in a move slammed by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) as lacking transparency. Minister of Justice Ang Vong Vathana said that the “three ...