News

A group of 30 civil society organisations including labour unions, NGOs, community networks, indigenous peoples, youth groups and professional associations have requested that the government be more responsive to the concerns of its citizenry and allow people the freedom, opportunity and space to express their ...

Dissatisfied by wages at home, thousands of Cambodians have been lured to Malaysia by the promise of bigger pay cheques, but while many have found themselves subjected to long hours, unpaid wages, unsafe working conditions and even physical abuse, they have – until now – ...

While the smoke has long cleared on January’s violent garment strikes, for many of the 23 workers and unionists arrested and tried on charges widely considered to be baseless, the ordeal is far from over. Nine months after security forces used deadly violence to end strikes ...

Vorn Pao was re-elected president on Thursday of the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association (IDEA), a labor group comprised mostly of tuk-tuk drivers and moto-dops, in an uncontested ballot after his vice president withdrew from the race over allegations of irregularities. Sok Chhun Oeung, who ...

Before he was arrested in January, Vorn Pov and the union he created were not widely known outside of activist circles. But when he emerged from Phnom Penh’s CC1 prison on Friday, he walked away as one of the highest-profile unionists in the country, and a ...

Despite presenting no hard evidence against defendants throughout the two trials of 23 men arrested during a strike that turned deadly in early January, a prosecutor used his closing statement yesterday to up the charges against union leader Vorn Pov. The final day of two trials ...

During his second day under questioning on charges of inciting violence and property damage at a January 2 protest, union leader Vorn Pao was presented with photographs showing his tuk-tuk packed with rocks, and a video of him calling on low-ranking police to turn their ...

When union leader Vorn Pov was finally allowed to give testimony yesterday on the third day of the trial of 23 men arrested during a garment strike in January, he found himself cut off by an attorney ordering him to answer only the exact question ...

Defendants in a mass trial of 25 men and teenagers accused of joining a string of violent garment worker protests continued to profess their innocence during the second day of hearings at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday. Twenty-three of the men were arrested in ...

Union activist Vorn Pao and 20 other workers and activists who have been jailed since the violent suppression of garment protests in early January had their request for bail heard for the fifth time on Friday, this time by the Supreme Court. Mr. Pao, the president ...

One the eve of the trial of 23 people arrested during a garment strike in January, their supporters yesterday expressed concern that politics, rather than the facts, may determine the verdict. Nearly four months after their arrests at protests on January 2 and 3 – the ...

Garment factory owners failed to turn up for what was supposed to have been a tripartite meeting with the government and worker unions on Thursday to help break an impasse in negotiations to increase the minimum wage for workers, officials said. The International Labor Organization (ILO) ...

A union leader among 21 workers and activists arrested in January demonstrations will appear in the Court of Appeal to argue for bail next week, despite the same court denying his request last month. Vorn Pov, president of Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association (IDEA), and ...

A day after union leader Vorn Pov was violently arrested during garment strikes in early January, he was driven to an unknown location and told by armed officers to get out of the vehicle. ... The union leader said his group of co-accused share a cell ...

Most tuk-tuk drivers have to continuously vie with each other to attract tourists’ attention, but Oung Hour gets it without even trying. As he stands on the sidewalk near the riverside, groups of tourists point at his bright mustard-yellow tuk-tuk, its smooth fiberglass body shaped like ...

As lawyers for 21 defendants denied bail by the Court of Appeal last week wait for the Supreme Court to respond to their appeals, the most high-profile of the detainees is speaking out via social media. On Friday night, Prak Sovannary, wife of Vorn Pov – ...

The Cambodian government must immediately and unconditionally release the 21 garment workers and human rights defenders who have been detained since early January, FIDH and its member organizations Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC) and Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human ...

Defence attorneys will now turn to the Supreme Court after a Court of Appeals judge denied bail this morning for all 21 people still detained from clashes with authorities during garment strike demonstrations last month. The presiding judge said he decided not to allow bail based ...

Activists may find themselves in a showdown with police this morning during a planned vigil on Phnom Penh’s riverside and a march to several embassies. National Military Police spokesman Kheng Tito said yesterday that people supporting the release of 21 people detained during a garment strike ...

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. ... ...

Security guards that have forcibly detained protesters in the capital in recent weeks include large numbers of men who have received no government security training, Phnom Penh municipal spokesman Long Dimanche said yesterday. In an effort to recruit civilian “public order” officers, Dimanche told the Post, the ...

Phnom Penh police released union leader Sok Chhun Oeung from custody Monday, a day after dragging him off the street at a peaceful protest he had organized along Phnom Penh’s riverside against the detention of 23 men still in jail for participating in demonstrations over ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Police this morning released a union leader they scooped off the street yesterday evening for allegedly leading a protest despite a ban on public demonstrations. Sok Chhun Oeung, acting president of the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association (IDEA), left the police station ...

Notification that her son is being detained at Correctional Centre 3 in Kampong Cham came as a relief to Touch Sart yesterday, after spending nearly a week wondering whether he was even alive. Since her son, Theng Saroeun, was arrested along with 22 others at demonstrations ...