News

Two dozen ethnic Montagnard Christians who fled Vietnam earlier this year to seek refuge in Cambodia from alleged persecution have volunteered to return home, frustrated with long waits and the dim prospects of being granted asylum, a police official and rights activist in northeastern Cambodia ...

A senior investigator at rights group Adhoc has warned that regional economic integration will lead to a flood of Cambodians migrating elsewhere in search of jobs that pay better than those at home. ...

Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries need to do more to curb human trafficking, a leading human rights advocate says. Yet Asean was formed for the countries in the region to help each other with such issues, Lim Mony said. Trafficking in the region should ...

A top mining official on Wednesday urged the government of northeastern Cambodia’s Ratanakiri province to crack down on a group of Vietnamese running an illegal gold mining operation villagers and rights groups say is being protected by local authorities. ...

Around 100 ethnic Phnong villagers held a protest Tuesday in support of five fellow residents questioned at a court in northeastern Cambodia’s Kratie province over “illegal logging” amid a land dispute with a Vietnamese rubber company they say has encroached on their community forest. ...

Members of a community-based organization in Cambodia responsible for protecting local forest resources have confessed to illegally cutting down trees to sell to local businessmen, prompting the group’s leader to threaten to resign. ...

As Rhona Smith, the U.N.’s new special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, began her first official visit to the country Wednesday, leading human rights activists were at odds over how much her position could influence the situation on the ground. ...

Experts say migrant laborers lack basic information about threats to them abroad, making them vulnerable to exploitation. However, Chou Bun Eng, secretary of state for the Ministry Interior and vice chairman of the National Committee To Combat Human Trafficking, says the government does disseminate information ...

Indigenous villagers in northeastern Cambodia’s Stung Treng province on Monday called for an investigation into a saw mill they say has polluted their local waterway and caused residents to contract a skin disease. ...

Promises of well-paying jobs in Malaysia turned into a nightmare for four young men repatriated from the country last week with help from rights group Adhoc. The four – who range from 18 to 24 years old – had been sold to a plantation ...

Indigenous people in Mondolkiri province have joined together to form a new political party to give a voice to the country’s minority groups, a party official said Wednesday. ...

Seventeen members of a Cambodian rights group and environmental NGO were briefly detained by authorities in Cambodia’s southeastern Koh Kong province Wednesday as they observed protests calling for the release of three activists held for interfering with sand-dredging operations, sources said. ...

Pa Socheatvong, the Phnom Penh governor and head of the Phnom Penh branch of the Cambodian Red Cross (CRC), oversaw the opening of a luxury six-story hotel in Preah Vihear City on Monday, officials said. ...

Rights group Adhoc recorded 131 rape cases in the first six months of the year, compared to 80 cases in 2014—a nearly 64 percent increase—due to the influence of “uncontrolled foreign cultures” such as pornography, according to a report released by the NGO on Wednesday. ...

Five Cambodians were shot dead by Thai soldiers while illegally logging across the border during the first half of the year, according to the government’s latest figures, roughly on par with last year. ...

Two monks were arrested in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district on Saturday for possessing a small amount of crystal methamphetamine, police said Sunday, but fellow monks and pagoda residents claimed the arrests were retaliation for the two taking part in political rallies. ...

A group of 26 local NGOs submitted a letter to King Norodom Sihamoni on Thursday calling on him to refuse to sign off on a controversial law regulating non-governmental groups in the country. ...

Rights group Adhoc has hit back at accusations from the Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia that it interferes in judicial proceedings involving its lawyers, saying that the group had merely requested that a backlog of case files be moved from the home of ...

Authorities in Sihanoukville have ordered 26 vendors on O’chheuteal Beach to move their stalls away from the popular stretch of sand by Saturday next week in the interest of “aesthetic beauty” or face eviction. ...

Human Rights Watch on Thursday added its voice to the criticism of Cambodia’s judiciary for defamation charges brought against Ny Chakyra, a senior human rights advocate who accused two judicial officials in Siem Reap province of misconduct in their handling of a land dispute. ...

Authorities in Sihanoukville have ordered 26 vendors on O’chheuteal Beach to move their stalls away from the popular stretch of sand by Saturday next week in the interest of “aesthetic beauty” or face eviction. ...

Vietnam has stopped construction of a road near its border with Kampot province after Cambodian officials complained that the project was coming too close to the borderline, according to a provincial border police official. ...

The Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia on Tuesday wrote to local rights group Adhoc accusing its head of monitoring, Ny Chakrya, of flouting legal practice by ordering the NGO’s lawyers to hand over for examination all documents relating to cases they defend. ...

Although the number of land disputes across the country decreased in the first six months of the year—largely due to a freeze on the granting of economic land concessions—little has been done to resolve existing disputes, according to a report released Wednesday by rights group ...