News

A government committee charged with assessing damage from the garment worker protests in December and January has put the value of the destruction at over $250,000. It places blame squarely on the opposition CNRP and a trio of union leaders. That committee’s report, released Thursday, ...

Family members of two men slain by military police in violent suppression of a garment worker protest in January were questioned Wednesday at the Ministry of Interior, although the investigation into the killings was officially declared closed on March 16. Soun Nara, the brother of Yean ...

Cambodia’s European aid donors said Tuesday they are working on a new five-year “cooperation strategy” designed to increase the impact of the millions of dollars in loans and grants they give the country each year. With a combined $209 million in aid to Cambodia in 2012, ...

Some 625 prisoners could be released or see their jail terms reduced on the occasion of Khmer New Year, which falls on April 14-16, according to the Ministry of Justice. ...

More than 600 of the Kingdom’s inmates could be released or see their sentences reduced this Khmer New Year if the King responds favourably to a request made yesterday by the Ministry of Interior’s General Department of Prisons, officials said. Kuy Bunsorn, director general of the ...

A lack of identification papers is the key obstacle preventing ethnic Vietnamese living in Kompong Chhnang province from enjoying the same rights as Khmer citizens, according to a survey released Tuesday. In the new report, the Minority Rights Organization (MIRO) found that ethnic Vietnamese are often ...

A Cambodian human rights group today asked the caretaker government of Thailand to end executions of Cambodia civilians after 15 Cambodians were shot dead this month. In its statement released today, The Cambodian Center for Human Rights (“CCHR”) expresses its deep concern regarding the continued arbitrary ...

Officials from the ruling CPP said Wednesday that a series of public forums announced by Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier this year, which he said would help gather input for his promised plans to introduce widespread political reform, are now being held around the country. The ...

Government officials have got to work parsing a controversial request that Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in the region with a spotty record handling refugees, take some of Australia’s asylum seekers. Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop made the request to Prime Minister Hun Sen ...

About 100 Daun Penh district riot police on Wednesday held exercises in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park in preparation for possible industrial action in a week that garment workers’ unions had called for a mass stay-at-home strike. Unions had downscaled plans of street protests to a mass ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court has reopened an investigation into the high-profile slaying of union leader Chea Vichea in 2004, a court official said yesterday. Prosecutor Sok Roeun said the court’s head prosecutor began reinvestigating the case early last month in response to an order from the ...

Some 200 ethnic Kuoy minority villagers in Preah Vihear’s Chheb district blocked tractors belonging to a Chinese company from bulldozing their rice crops yesterday, the same day that district authorities received a letter from the Interior Ministry instructing them to broker an agreement between villagers ...

Road traffic accidents are killing more Cambodians per year than those who died annually as a result of war during their country’s more than two decades of armed conflict, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday. Speaking in Battambang province’s Bavel district at the inauguration of the ...

Freedom Park was placed under lockdown and a march by land rights activists was blocked Saturday morning as Phnom Penh’s security officials were out in force to ensure that peaceful rallies on International Women’s Day could not go as planned. Prime Minister Hun Sen on February ...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng on Friday warned that a union-led public forum scheduled for Freedom Park on Saturday morning would not be allowed to proceed, adding that a fresh wave of union marches next week are also banned. The security minister’s comments came during a talk ...

Phnom Penh’s Panha Chiet University has informed the local NGO Silaka that it cannot hold a meeting on women’s rights planned for today because the event might deal with political issues. Silaka had rented a conference room at the university for the meeting, intended to mark ...

The government will not consult civil society groups on the latest iteration of a draft law that will regulate non-governmental organisations and associations, a senior Interior Ministry official said yesterday. Meas Sarim, deputy director-general of the General Department of Local Administration at the Ministry of Interior ...

The government can’t seem to agree on whether or not Prime Minister Hun Sen has lifted the ban on the constitutional right to freedom of assembly. Last week, Mr. Hun Sen said in a speech: “I will not prevent [demonstrations] because everyone has equal rights,” which ...

A group of 18 labor unions and associations said they will proceed with plans for a public forum in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park on Saturday, despite City Hall’s rejecting their request, citing public security concerns. The unions, who are organizing a nationwide strike in the garment ...

Cambodia and Britain signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to fight against cross-border crimes. “The MOU focused on cooperation between the General Commissariat of National Police and Britain’s National Crime Agency to fight against crimes and related violations,” said Kirt Chantharith, national police spokesman. ...

One year ago today, ex-Bavet town governor Chhouk Bandith smiled as he sat before a judge at the Appeal Court in Phnom Penh on the first day of his trial for shooting and badly injuring three unarmed garment workers at a protest in Prey Veng ...

Every day, five people die in traffic accidents in Cambodia – a number the government is hoping to reduce with a new policy aimed at cutting traffic accidents by 50 per cent in 2020. The National Policy on Road Safety, passed by the Council of Ministers ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday praised the country’s armed forces for their handling of last year’s election and its deadly aftermath, saying problems they met in 2013 were solved “successfully”. Speaking at the Ministry of Interior’s annual meeting, Hun Sen avoided mentioning the fatal shooting of ...

Cambodia saw a dramatic increase in the number of tourist deaths in the past year, an annual report released by the Ministry of Interior (MoI) has revealed. Twenty-one foreign visitors died in 2013, up from 14 deaths the year prior to that, a 50 per cent ...