News
Ex-Environment Minister Says Deforestation Exaggerated
Former Environment Minister Mok Mareth on Tuesday accused the media of having “twisted the truth” in reporting on illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province, where rights groups and independent forestry monitors say the natural environment is being pillaged and ethnic minority communities impoverished by illegal loggers ...
Ben Woods and Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ex-environment-minister-says-deforestation-exaggerated-47930/
New Report Shows Cambodian Forests in Jeopardy
The rights group Adhoc says it is monitoring “at least 100” individuals who are complicit in forestry crimes across the country. These include “high-ranking officers” of the police and military police; business tycoons; and ordinary citizens across 11 provinces, Chan Soveth, a lead investigator for the ...
Kong Sothanarith
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/new-report-shows-cambodian-forests-in-jeopardy/1797315.html
Campaign Against Gender Violence Launched
The Ministry of Women’s Affairs, NGOs and several U.N. agencies Monday launched the 13th annual campaign against gender-based violence, which this year is focused on rape, organizers said Monday. Sixteen Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign celebrated in countries around the globe ...
Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/campaign-against-gender-violence-launched-47895/
Villagers ‘paid to log’ lost land
Local communities that lost their land via economic land concessions to private companies are now being paid by those same firms to illegally fell the trees that once sustained their livelihoods, a group of five advocacy groups contended yesterday. At a press conference, the NGOs singled ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/villagers-%E2%80%98paid-log%E2%80%99-lost-land
Cambodian NGOs Threaten to Expose More Illegal Logging
A group of Cambodian NGOs threatened on Monday to expose more cases of forestry crime involving businessmen and the police, saying they were unshaken by a defamation suit filed by top tycoon accused of illegal logging and land-grabbing. Representatives of the five organizations told reporters Monday ...
Radio Free Asia News Staff
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/logging-11252013185559.html
Families Protest Eviction by Chinese Company
Forty-two families from Preah Vihear province’s Chheb district on Sunday held a demonstration to protest their pending eviction in favor of a Chinese company that plans to establish a sugarcane plantation on the land the families have occupied for almost three years. Local authorities have told ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/families-protest-eviction-by-chinese-company-47808/
Three Cambodians Killed Illegally Logging Across Thai Border
Thai forestry officials killed three Cambodians who were illegally logging on Tuesday, in what they said was a shootout in Thailand’s Sisaket province, a border official said Wednesday. The latest deaths bring the number of Cambodians who have been shot while logging across the border this ...
Saing Soenthrith
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/three-cambodians-killed-illegally-logging-across-thai-border-47532/
Intervention sought in land dispute
Twelve representatives of 50 families in Preah Vihear’s Kulen district are seeking aid from a rights group after being summonsed to court last week over a land dispute with a Malaysian company. The villagers gathered in Adhoc’s provincial office in Srayong commune yesterday to draft and ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/intervention-sought-land-dispute
Social Media Challenges ‘Official’ Version of Events
Seeing is believing—particularly in a country where the government controls the broadcast media and current affairs news, aired on pro-ruling party TV and radio, is often at odds with the country’s few independent media outlets. But in the aftermath of a violent clash between striking garment ...
Kuch Naren and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/social-media-challenges-official-version-of-events-47012/
Commune Chief Charged With Smuggling Wood
The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court on Thursday charged an opposition CNRP commune chief with smuggling protected forest products after he was arrested while transporting logs to sell in Vietnam, officials said. Sev Nhang, who was elected chief of Batang commune in O’Yadaw district for the Sam Rainsy ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/commune-chief-charged-with-smuggling-wood-46467/
Evictees, Activists Scuffle With Police in Front of City Hall
Evictees and anti-eviction activists on Wednesday briefly scuffled with police and security guards after cutting off traffic in front of Phnom Penh City Hall to demand that businesswoman Suy Sophan compensate them for homes that were bulldozed early last year. Human rights group Adhoc said at ...
Khuon Narim and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/evictees-activists-scuffle-with-police-in-front-of-city-hall-46362/
Rights group investigates miner’s death
The death of a miner on Monday in a pit collapse in Preah Vihear is under investigation by Adhoc, the rights group has said. Lor Chann, Adhoc coordinator in Preah Vihear province, said yesterday that the miner died while working for a private mining firm in ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rights-group-investigates-miner%E2%80%99s-death
RCAF evicting for bases: NGO
The Royal Cambodian Armed Forces have evicted nearly 1,000 families in 14 provinces in the past five years, ostensibly to build military bases, according to a report released by rights group Adhoc yesterday. The report outlined Adhoc’s concerns over ongoing land disputes between local communities and ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rcaf-evicting-bases-ngo
Try Pheap Bulldozers Return to Clear Land, Stopped by Protesters
About 100 villagers in Preah Vihear province’s Rovieng district on Saturday turned out in protest for the second time this week to prevent a bulldozer that belongs to well-known businessman Try Pheap from clearing their land next to his rubber plantation, local officials and residents ...
Protesters Stop Try Pheap Tractor From Clearing Land in Preah Vihear
More than 100 people on Thursday protested and stopped a bulldozer belonging to businessman Try Pheap from clearing their land next to a rubber plantation he owns in Preah Vihear’s Rovieng district, villagers and local officials said. Oeun Sitha said he was among more than 100 ...
Man Arrested Over Murder of Rubber Farmer
A man has been arrested for his alleged role in the killing of a landowner following a dispute over a boundary at a rubber plantation in Ratanakkiri province, deputy provincial police chief Phen Dina said Tuesday. Sok Na, 48, who was arrested on Monday evening at ...
Sek Odom
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/man-arrested-over-murder-of-rubber-farmer-45712/
Another Haul of Illegal Logs Found on Vietnamese Firm’s Land
Forestry Administration officials on Friday confiscated 1,000 pieces of luxury wood on land belonging to a Vietnamese rubber company that has been repeatedly accused of illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, local officials and human rights workers said Sunday. Romash Svat, a representative of some ...
Aun Pheap and Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/another-haul-of-illegal-logs-found-on-vietnamese-firms-land-45514/
Court Dismisses Rights Groups’ Complaints
The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has dismissed two complaints submitted by two local human rights groups, Adhoc and the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), against local officials who they alleged had defamed and intimidated their staff, court officials said Friday. Adhoc filed a complaint against Pheng ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/court-dismisses-rights-groups-complaints-45516/
Security Guards Disrupt Memorial Ceremony for Slain Man
There were ugly scenes on Friday at Phnom Penh’s hill-temple Wat Phnom when district security guards scuffled, shouted abuse and punched a group of mostly women and monks who had gathered to hold a memorial ceremony for Mao Sok Chan—the 29-year-old man shot dead by ...
Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/security-guards-disrupt-memorial-ceremony-for-slain-man-45479/
Ex-Finance Minister’s Sister Buys Up More Ethnic Jarai Lands
About 50 ethnic Jarai families in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district have sold their farmland and part of the forests their culture depends on to the sister of former Finance Minister Keat Chhon, rights group Adhoc said Monday. Last year, the ethnic minority Jarai in the district ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ex-finance-ministers-sister-buys-up-more-ethnic-jarai-lands-45093/
Villagers in Land Row Complain of Death Threat
Four representatives of villagers locked in a land dispute with the well-connected KDC company have filed a complaint with the Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court after they received death threats. “The anonymous letter was a threat against our lives,” said Reach Seima, one of the representatives, adding ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-in-land-row-complain-of-death-threat-44714/
Another Court Clerk Arrested for Corruption
A clerk at the Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of corruption and bribe-taking, police and Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) officials said, but rights groups said clerks alone are not in a position to determine the course of court cases and that more ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/another-court-clerk-arrested-for-corruption-44366/
Cambodia: Chut Wutty's legacy creates an opportunity for land justice
In Cambodia, there is talk of change. Not just from Hun Sen, the prime minister, who has promised reforms after his party suffered a significant blow in recent elections, but from environmental activists and campaigners, who say there has never before been such an opportunity ...
Kate Hodal
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/oct/02/cambodia-chut-wutty-land
Violence begets violence
A mob of 500 villagers beat a man to death in Kampong Cham province yesterday after he allegedly slaughtered his wife and stepdaughter with a pair of scythes and reportedly taunted the assembled crowd with his wife’s severed hand. Police said Laing Pises, 48, used the ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/violence-begets-violence