News

Four witnesses appeared at Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday to testify on behalf of 13 of the 23 men detained in Kampong Cham’s Correctional Centre 3 since crackdowns on striking garment workers at the beginning of this month, a lawyer representing the 13 said. ...

Despite Cambodia’s labour law forbidding employers from taking action against workers for engaging in union activity, more than 100 labour union representatives have been fired from at least 12 factories this month for encouraging workers to strike for a $160 monthly minimum wage. The firings came ...

Representatives of Chinese company Tianjin Union Development Group, backed by soldiers, annihilated crops and burned the homes of 29 families in Koh Kong’s Botum Sakor district last week, rights groups say. According to a report given to the Post yesterday, a two-day fact-finding mission spearheaded by ...

Ten years after his assassination, friends and associates remember Chea Vichea, the founding president of the Free Trade Union, as a quiet man but a charismatic leader, passionate about labor issues and the right for workers to collectively bargain for higher wages and better conditions. ...

The Ministry of Justice is moving ahead with plans to expand the Appeal Court system around the country as part of inter-ministerial talks that began on Monday on the subject of judicial reform. The talks, which are expected to wrap up today, focus on a long-awaited ...

District security guards this morning arrested 11 political activists taking part in a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh against the imprisonment of 23 protesters who were beaten and arrested earlier this month. The protesters, including union leader Rong Chhun and prominent ...

Ten lawyers representing 22 of the 23 striking workers, union officials and political activists imprisoned at a maximum-security prison in Kompong Cham province since their arrests at two protests in Phnom Penh earlier this month submitted bail requests for their clients Thursday, one of the ...

Defying a new ban on public gatherings, more than 50 activists and monks gathered outside the local U.N. human rights office Monday morning to demand the immediate release of 23 men who were arrested earlier this month during violent clashes between police and garment workers. The ...

Civil society groups yesterday urged the international community to put more pressure on the government to ensure the safety of prisoners arrested in recent crackdowns and to prevent further police and military violence against civilians. At a press conference yesterday morning, images of soldiers beating and ...

The U.N. special envoy for human rights in Cambodia on Monday met with about 100 activists in the capital Phnom Penh who sought his help to gain the release of nearly two dozen people arrested during recent violent government crackdowns on striking factory workers. Envoy Surya ...

A juvenile accused of destroying a police car during a violent strike by SL Garment factory workers in November remained in Prey Sar prison yesterday, despite the Court of Appeal having granted him bail. Sary Bothchakrya, a lawyer from the Community Legal Education Center (CLEC) representing ...

Lawyers and human rights workers were prevented from entering Kompong Cham province’s Correctional Center 3 (CC3) prison on Thursday when they attempted to meet with some of the 23 protesters, union leaders and garment workers detained last week after protests were lethally suppressed by government ...

The whereabouts of 23 people arrested last week during a crackdown on demonstrations in Por Sen Chey district remained unknown yesterday, with prison officials and police refusing to divulge the information to family members and rights groups. ...

The U.N. and local human rights groups have condemned the government’s violent eviction of CNRP supporters from Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park on Saturday, as well as its indefinite ban on public protests in the city. On Saturday, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court also summonsed opposition leaders ...

The sight of traffic moving easily and people milling about along Veng Sreng Boulevard in the capital’s Meanchey district yesterday was a far cry from two days earlier, when the street was occupied by makeshift roadblocks, bonfires and military personnel carrying automatic rifles. While visible evidence ...

Two ethnic Kuoy villagers in Preah Vihear province’s Tbeng Meanchey district are in hiding after rumours circulated yesterday that police were seeking to arrest them for participating in a protest against two Chinese plantation firms last week. ...

Prominent activist monk But Buntenh, head of the Independent Monk Network for Social Justice, was arrested in Preah Vihear province on Thursday, along with another monk and three NGO staffers who had traveled to the province to support a group of ethnic Kuoy villagers protesting ...

An increasing number of Cambodians see themselves faring worse, a Gallup polls suggests. In a global survey released earlier this month, the US-based firm ranked Cambodia near the very bottom in terms of life satisfaction, and it found that 34 percent of surveyed Cambodians consider themselves ...

An NGO is working to free two Cambodian women forced into marriage in China, a representative of the organisation said yesterday. Huy Pichsovann, program officer at the Community Legal Education Center (CLEC), said that the two women, aged 22 and 27, were enticed from their Kampong ...

A day after authorities carted away 11 protesters intending to camp out in front of the United States embassy, a similarly ad hoc group of citizens struggled to deliver petitions to three embassies in the capital yesterday. The group of about 50 were blocked by police ...

A day of peaceful demonstrations gave way to an evening of unrest last night as a handful of protesters were removed from a small patch of land across from the United States embassy and a grup of uninvolved people threw Molotov cocktails towards riot police ...

An indigenous Bunong minority community in Mondolkiri province’s Keo Seima district on Wednesday filed a complaint claiming that authorities had destroyed their homes, but authorities allege that the villagers are living on land owned by a private company. Villagers claim that since November, 37 homes in ...

After the management of an embattled garment factory this week refused to follow a government order to reinstate 19 dismissed union leaders and activists, unionists and observers are at a divergence of opinion over how the state should respond. “It’s fairly unprecedented,” Dave Welsh, country director ...

A woman was killed and at least six others shot yesterday morning when police fired live ammunition into a crowd of hundreds of rioting garment workers in the capital’s Stung Meanchey district. UN reports said police also arrested 37 people, including seven monks, as a result ...