News

Chan Soveth, a longtime human rights defender, died of a heart attack on Wednesday. Colleagues say he was returning from celebrations to mark International Human Rights Day. He was 51. ...

The head of the country’s anti-graft body has said he has received two death threats since the unit responsible for directing investigations into public and private-sector corruption was established in 2010. ...

Local rights group Adhoc on Thursday called on Prime Minister Hun Sen and other government officials to hold regular meetings with NGOs in order to better understand the human rights situation in the country. ...

The number of people charged in land disputes across the country so far this year has already surpassed the number of charges in all of 2013 in what rights group Adhoc on Tuesday called an “alarming” increase in legal action against those wrapped up in ...

Three men embroiled in a land dispute with a company owned by the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem were arrested Tuesday while marching with about 50 fellow villagers from Kompong Chhnang province’s Lor Peang village to Phnom Penh. The villagers planned to walk ...

More than a year after Prime Minister Hun Sen’s land-titling program was suspended in the lead-up to the 2013 national elections, it has still not begun again despite government claims that the program would resume following the poll. The unfinished work left by student volunteers, who ...

In yet another attempt to stem the looting of Cambodia’s forests, lakes and rivers, the Interior Ministry has given all cities and provinces until July 20 to submit detailed reports on all the illegal logging and fishing taking place in their jurisdictions. The latest initiative comes ...

A Singapore-based firm whose subsidiary plans to buy land in Phnom Penh from which thousands of families have been forcibly evicted said Wednesday that the firm had no knowledge of the long-running land dispute. The firm, HLH Group, also denied any official or financial ties to ...

Hundreds of families descended on Phnom Penh yesterday to ask Prime Minister Hun Sen and the United Nations to intervene in three separate land disputes. More than 800 families from across the country gathered in front of Wat Botum at about 9am, where they submitted petitions ...

Developer Shukaku has sold off close to 1.3 hectares of land at the capital’s controversial Boeung Kak lake site to a Singapore-listed HLH Group company, according to a statement from HLH. HLH subsidiary D’Lotus Development purchased the land at Boeung Kak in Daun Penh district for ...

A sub-decree aimed at stemming the massive influx of mostly undocumented Cambodian migrant workers returning from Thailand with a drastically reduced passport fee already appears to be generating an overwhelming response. Yesterday, an estimated 200 workers lined up outside the Battambang provincial passport office to get ...

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. ...

The fate of Khim Saphath, the 16-year-old boy missing since clashes between striking garment workers and security forces erupted on Veng Sreng Boulevard on January 3, continues to differentiate fatality lists compiled by rights groups. He was last seen lying on the ground with a bloody ...

“I don’t know how to protect the territorial integrity [of the nearby Cambodian-Thai border] – even my three hectares of land I cannot protect,” said Bun Chanthorn, 54, one of hundreds of retired and active soldiers who since 2010 have been battling the local authorities ...

When activists Mom Sakin and Sorn Siyan took a stand against illegal logging in Kratie province last month, they were allegedly threatened with violence and lawsuits from officials. “Powerful people who wanted to intimidate us shot their guns into the air to prevent us from going ...

A commune official in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district has filed a lawsuit accusing a human rights worker of incitement and disinformation after villagers the NGO staffer spoke to traveled to Phnom Penh to protest over a land dispute involving a well-known businessman Try Pheap. Pursat ...

Rough[ly] 40 representatives of some 370 families locked in a years-long land dispute with a rubber concessionaire in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district demonstrated outside the Phnom Penh offices of Adhoc yesterday to publicise their situation. The villagers, many of whom are family members of soldiers ...

Human Rights investigator Chan Soveth has returned to Cambodia more than two-and-a-half months after leaving in the face of a criminal charge that is thought to be linked to an alleged insurrection that took place in Kratie province in May. On August 14, the court charge ...

Some of the U.S.’ most senior lawmakers are urging Barack Obama to speak out on what they called Cambodia’s deteriorating human rights situation when the U.S. president makes what will be the first visit to the country by a sitting American leader later this month. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday agreed to delay today’s scheduled questioning of well-known rights investigator Chan Soveth, who has been charged with aiding an unnamed perpetrator in an unnamed crime. Local human rights group Adhoc requested a delay of the court appearance on the grounds that Mr. Soveth is ...

A Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge yesterday approved a proposal to delay the case against human-rights worker Chan Soveth, according to his employer, Adhoc. Soveth has been accused of providing assistance to “specific perpetrators”. Although the court did not provide names, an anonymous court official recently ...

International human rights groups continued to rally around the local rights worker Chan Soveth on Friday, two days after it emerged that the Adhoc staff member summoned by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on charges of aiding an unnamed perpetrator with an unidentified crime. In a ...

A day after well-known human rights worker Chan Soveth was summoned by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court over charges of aiding an unnamed perpetrator in an unnamed crime, human rights groups issued a statement branding the charged as politically-motivated and intended to intimidate government critics. “We ...

Charges against outspoken Adhoc head of monitoring Chan Soveth are baseless, politically motivated and threaten to undermine human rights work in Cambodia, a coalition of NGOs said yesterday. Soveth, who has been summonsed to court on August 24 over the vague charge of assisting “specific perpetrators”, ...