News

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 ...

The government has issued a total of 3.4 million land titles across the country, 500,000 of them since a renewed push personally orchestrated by Prime Minister Hun Sen, according to new figures released by the Land Management Ministry. In a notice posted to its website Friday, ...

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. ...

Nearly 200 villagers from Kratie province gathered in Phnom Penh Monday, hoping to deliver a petition to the Cambodian Senate and other government agencies in protest of a rubber company’s development there. The villagers, from Snoul district, say a Vietnamese rubber company began developing in ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 2012 ban on the allocation of economic land concessions was supposed to halt the unpopular practice of turning over large swaths of property to developers. And going by the numbers last year, it worked. But in the vacuum, according to local rights ...

The governors of Preah Sihanouk, Ratanakkiri and Pursat provinces have been replaced by Royal Decree, according to officials, with the first of the transfer ceremonies being carried out Thursday morning. Sborng Sarath, the governor of Preah Sihanouk province, was replaced Thursday by Chhit Sokhom, the former ...

Cambodian authorities have charged nearly half as many villagers in land dispute cases in the first three months of this year as they did in all of 2013, a local rights group said Thursday, adding that most of the rows stemmed from government-granted land concessions. Following ...

For months now, Daun Penh district security forces, identifiable by their dark blue uniforms, black motorbike helmets and merciless truncheon swinging, have been unleashed on protesters, opposition and otherwise, as the all-too-willing enforcers of government-approved crackdowns. But as district forces have begun targeting more journalists during ...

The freedom of the press and expression in Cambodia becomes worse this year, according the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC). ...

Four hundred Kandal villagers locked in a land dispute in Ponhea Leu district with development company Phanimex submitted a petition Wednesday to district authorities and rights group Adhoc calling for a solution. The petition came a day after villagers blocked National Road 5 for more than ...

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 ...

Garment factory owners failed to turn up for what was supposed to have been a tripartite meeting with the government and worker unions on Thursday to help break an impasse in negotiations to increase the minimum wage for workers, officials said. The International Labor Organization (ILO) ...

Members of a Lao ethnic community in Ratanakkiri province allegedly burned down three makeshift houses belonging to a rubber plantation on Monday. The 250 villagers in Veun Sai district’s Hatpak village accuse Indian-owned SK Company of encroaching on the forest and ignoring markers demarcating village farmland, ...

About 80 villagers calling for the release of two former Khmer Rouge soldiers allegedly arrested for illegally occupying land in Malai district rallied outside Banteay Meanchey Provincial Hall, locals and rights group Adhoc said yesterday. Community representatives Ly Khley and Hoeun Vy were detained on Tuesday ...

Two villagers in Kampong Chhnang province’s Kampong Trolach district have fled their homes for safety reasons after getting an alarming summons from police in response to their refusal to accept relocation money from KDC International Company, which has been feuding with locals over land for ...

Two villagers in Kampong Chhnang province’s Kampong Trolach district have fled their homes for safety reasons after getting an alarming summons from police in response to their refusal to accept relocation money from KDC International Company, which has been feuding with locals over land for ...

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 ...

A deputy district military police chief in Kampong Thom’s Santuk district is under scrutiny for allegedly clearing up to seven hectares of community forest land for personal gain, and district officials are investigating the case with the aim of presenting it at the provincial court ...

Ang Mealatey, the former president of Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court, was appointed president of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday, ending the eight-year tenure of Chiv Keng. Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana and Supreme Court President Dith Munty presided over the ceremony of around 100 ...

Seven people were injured Monday when opposition lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua clashed with security forces outside Freedom Park in the Phnom Penh. Mu Sochua is leading a non-violent campaign by attempting to enter the park in protest of the government’s current ban on public gatherings. ...

The governor of Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat district will face arrest if he fails to appear for a second summons to Ratanakkiri Provincial Court to answer questions about his alleged involvement in the illegal logging of protected land around the Ou’Sinlair waterfall, the court said yesterday. The ...

Representatives of 50 families in Ratanakkiri’s Andong Meas district filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc yesterday alleging that a Vietnamese concessionaire is responsible for destroying about 50 hectares of cashew plantations. Sorl Penh, 58, a representative for the villagers from Nhang commune, said yesterday that ...

A man was seriously injured on Saturday by an anti-personnel landmine that exploded under him as he tried to sneak across the Thai-Cambodian border to illegally log rosewood, local officials said. [O’Smach commune chief] Mr. [Phang] Sam Ath said the border area where the men ...

Police in Svay Rieng province yesterday afternoon arrested a union worker who was delivering flyers supporting a stay-at-home strike scheduled to begin after Khmer New Year. While delivering about 1,100 fliers to union members at Full Fortune Knitting, Kem Chamroeun, a 25-year-old Collective Union of Movement ...