News

At the ceremony yesterday making the official start of the National Election Committee’s new mandate, NEC chairman Im Suosdey criticized the U.N. human rights envoy to Cambodia for taking an exceedingly harsh view of the country’s much derided electoral system. In a July report to the ...

In its first official response to a highly critical resolution on Cambodia from the European Parliament, the government has rejected all criticism and instead accused the Parliament in Brussels of playing politics and interfering in Phnom Penh’s affairs. In its resolution approved October 26, the European ...

The government approved the Lower Sesan 2 dam project in Stung Treng province without any prior consultation with the most affected communities in Sesan district, where at least 5,000 people stand to be displaced, rights groups and villagers said yesterday. A study published earlier this ...

A week after the European Parliament issued a damning resolution on Cambodia’s human-rights situation and called for a revoking of trade privileges, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has shot back. “It is essential for the EU parliament to study and better understand the situation before passing ...

The entirety of three protected forests are now classified as private land, an investigation from rights group Adhoc has found, along with tens of thousands of additional hectares of what has once been state public land In three cases, Adhoc’s findings show that entire protected forests ...

Soldiers should not have been deployed in support of a warrant to arrest land dispute protesters in Kratie province in May—an operation that led to the killing of a 14-year-old girl by armed forces, a Japanese human rights group said in a new report. The report ...

Families in Koh Kong province will today file a complaint with the U.S. government against American Sugar Refining (ASR) over farmland they claim they were violently evicted from to make way for two sugar plantations that supply the New York-based company. The 207 Koh Kong ...

The Australian Senate yesterday urged the Cambodian government to run free and fair national elections next year without the “harassment or intimidation” of opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who remains in self-imposed exile avoiding an 11-year jail sentence. The appeal comes only days after the European Parliament ...

Drawing from a long list of human rights abuses, the European Parliament has urged the Cambodian government to stop forced evictions, called on the European Commission (E.C.) to investigate the country’s controversial land concessions policy, and raised the prospect of sanctions. In a resolution passed Friday ...

Twelve journalists have been killed in Cambodia since 1993, according to a report from the rights group Adhoc, which believes much of the bloodshed was politically motivated. The body count was included in a round-up of abuses against the media in a report the group released ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday questioned the first of two human rights workers who are suing local officials for allegedly disrupting a July meeting they were hosting for villagers in Lumphat district. Deputy court prosecutor Ros Saram said he questioned Chhim Savuth, program officer for the ...

Environment rights group Global Witness yesterday joined the call for an independent investigation into the April 26 murder of conservation activist Chut Wutty following the conviction of a security guard in the case. On Monday the Koh Rong Provincial Court sentenced Rann Boroth, a security guard ...

The owner of a labor firm repeatedly accused of human trafficking, who is also the sister of one of the country’s top police officials, has been appointed head of the Association of Cambodian Recruitment Agencies (ACRA). Grave concerns have been expressed by rights groups over the appointment of Ung Seang ...

Government-issued economic land concessions are making the country’s indigenous communities in the northeast provinces worse off, according to a study by the Mekong Institute of Cambodia. Presented yesterday at the 2012 Development Research Forum in Phnom Penh, the study comes on top of mounting criticism of ...

In a rare intervention, the Thai Labor Ministry has stepped in to stop the exploitation of migrant workers from Cambodia and Myanmar at a seafood factory in the country’s south, correspondence obtained by the Post reveals. The ministry found the Phatthana Seafood factory, in Songkhla province, which employs ...

Time is running out to rid the proposed ASEAN Human Rights Declaration of clauses that would restrict peoples’ rights rather than protect and enhance them, civil society groups said yesterday. Nay Vanda, deputy head of the monitoring section of rights group Adhoc, said civil society groups needed more ...

Less than a month before Asean heads of state are expected to approve the first-ever human rights declaration for the regional group, Cambodian and Indonesian NGOs yesterday urged member states to give their organizations a larger role in the process. In the works for more than ...

The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) issued a statement on Friday praising the U.N. General Assembly for not voting in favor of Cambodia during its bid for a non-permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. U.N. member states cast their votes on Thursday in ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has summoned for questioning two human rights workers who have lodged court complaints against local officials for disrupting their land-rights workshop in July. Pen Bonnar, provincial coordinator for Adhoc, and Chhim Savuth, a project coordinator for the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), filed ...

Mam Sonando, the independent radio station owner whose jailing for 20 years earlier this month provoked international condemnation of the country’s courts, has launched an appeal, his wife and a prison official said yesterday. Mr. Sonando, the owner of Beehive Radio, was convicted by the Phnom ...

The U.N. General Assembly’s vote for the Asia-Pacific non-permanent seat on the Security Council went to the wire yesterday night, as a second ballot had to be held when none of the contenders, Cambodia, South Korea and Buthan, won a clear two-thirds majority. After the ...

A Ratanakkiri-based human rights worker charged by the Ratanakkiri Provincial Court with inciting ethnic minority villagers to protest during a 2009 land dispute with a private agro-industry company has been transferred to work in Phnom Penh. Pen Bonnar, Ratanakkiri provincial coordinator for Adhoc , said yesterday ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court questioned two well-known human rights workers yesterday in an incitement lawsuit brought against them by a CPP commune chief, one of those questioned said. About 200 ethnic minority Tumpuon villagers, embroiled in a land dispute with the DM Group rubber company, protested ...

Officials from four government bodies along with a personal adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday urged two US government-funded radio stations to be more professional and law-abiding during a closed-door meeting at the Council of Ministers. While little information was forthcoming regarding the content of ...