News
Subedi Calls for Accountability in Meeting With Hun Sen
In a meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen and 10 of the government’s highest-ranking officials in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi called for the perpetrators of recent state-sanctioned killings to be held accountable for their actions. Mr. Subedi spent three-and-a-half hours ...
Lauren Crothers and Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/subedi-calls-for-accountability-in-meeting-with-hun-sen-50675/
Justice Ministry to keep track of courts’ case lists
The Ministry of Justice yesterday held the first of what it said would be regular forums soliciting the input of civil society on judicial reforms, and promised a new measure that it maintained would streamline the courts’ workflow. Citing widespread frustration among citizens, Justice Minister Ang ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/justice-ministry-keep-track-courts%E2%80%99-case-lists
Lack of Legal Aid in Cambodia Puts Children, Poor at Risk
A national legal aid system is imperative and must be established to offset a widening gap between those who can afford justice and those who cannot, the representative for the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Cambodia said on Friday. In ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/lack-of-legal-aid-in-cambodia-puts-children-poor-at-risk-48219/
Bar Association Requests Set Price for Copies of Case Files
The Bar Association of Cambodia has written to Justice Minister Ang Vong Vattana requesting that an official price be set for photocopies of court case files, claiming that court clerks are taking advantage of the current system by charging lawyers extortionate amounts. The letter, dated October ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/bar-association-requests-set-price-for-copies-of-case-files-46689/
Hun Sen Makes More Cuts to Sok An’s Portfolio
Prime Minister Hun Sen signed off on a directive last week to transfer 11 government bodies, previously overseen by Cabinet Minister Sok An, to relevant ministries and institutions, further cutting the expansive portfolio of the deputy prime minister in the wake of July’s national election. ...
Aun Pheap and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sen-makes-more-cuts-to-sok-ans-portfolio-46512/
City Says It Will Provide Land Titles to 33 Boeng Kak Families
Phnom Penh Municipality will provide land titles to 33 more families living in the city’s Boeng Kak neighborhood, a municipal official said Tuesday, roughly a third of those still seeking property rights in the area that has seen some 3,000 forced evictions. “First, we will solve ...
Khy Sovuthy and Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/city-says-it-will-provide-land-titles-to-33-boeng-kak-families-45710/
Grenade Attack Remembered Amid Promised Reform
Opposition leaders Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha joined dozens of monks and hundreds of supporters on Monday for a Pchum Ben ceremony at the memorial stupa in Phnom Penh honoring the 16 people who were killed by a grenade attack on an opposition rally in ...
Aun Pheap and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/grenade-attack-remembered-amid-promised-reform-43996/
Database looks at court flaws
Nearly half of defendants lack legal representation, 80 per cent are held in pretrial detention, and a sizeable chunk confess before they get a hearing, according to an online public database released yesterday by the Cambodia Center for Human Rights. The database reveals numerous infringements on ...
Laignee Barron and Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/database-looks-court-flaws
US Taxman Provides Investigation Training
The U.S. tax collection agency is this week training Cambodian bank staff as well as anti-corruption officials, police, judges and prosecutors in how to investigate financial activity to detect wrongdoing, officials said Monday. U.S. Embassy spokesman Sean McIntosh said the program, called Intermediate Financial Investigations Training, ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/us-taxman-provides-investigation-training-40220/
Jail Sentence for Anti-Eviction Activist Upheld
The Court of Appeal on Friday upheld the guilty verdict for anti-eviction activist Yorm Bopha, but reduced her sentence from three-to two-years imprisonment, of which one year was suspended. The ruling means that Ms. Bopha will not be released until late 2014. Supporters and human rights groups ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/jail-sentence-for-anti-eviction-activist-upheld-31073/
Protesters Mix Petitions, Black Magic to Get Land
Sporting red bandanas and armed with the accoutrements of Khmer black magic, several hundred demonstrators representing embattled communities throughout the country held noisy protests outside several government offices yesterday, where they placed curses on corrupt officials and submitted written petitions demanding justice. Unlike previous protests that ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/protesters-mix-petitions-black-magic-to-get-land-30761/
Bundith Fails to Show Up at Retrial for Triple Shooting
Former Bavet City governor Chhouk Bundith failed to show up Wednesday for the first day of his long-awaited retrial at Svay Rieng Provincial Court for his alleged involvement in a shooting that left three workers wounded, court officials said. According to provincial Judge Leang Sour, Mr. ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/bundith-fails-to-show-up-at-retrial-for-triple-shooting-30758/
Rice Boss in Pre-trial Detention ‘13 Months’
The general director of a local rice wholesaler accused of defrauding business associates in a deal has lashed out at the judiciary – claiming delays in legal processing have left him imprisoned for 13 months without trial. Sovann Veasna is accused of cheating three businessmen ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052465829/National/rice-boss-in-pre-trial-detention-13-months.html
Subedi Urges Passage of Laws on Judiciary
U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi met with a senior official at the Ministry of Justice on Wednesday and reiterated a call for new legislation to be passed on governing Cambodia’s judiciary. “He did not ask us much on anything new, but he did ask for ...
Residents Rally At Palace For Release Of Land Activist
Around 30 residents from Boeung Kok, Borei Kei and Thmor kol communities gathered and knelt down Monday in front of the Royal Palace to seek intervention from the King to release jailed land activist Yorm Bopha. In the petition, they asked him to intervene the ...
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=OWNiYWVhYmQ4ZmM
Largesse and threats ahead of election
Prime Minister Hun Sen warned thousands of villagers yesterday that his most popular initiatives, including his far-reaching land-titling scheme, will simply disappear if he is not re-elected in July’s national election – amid suggestions his campaigning has unofficially begun. In a marked shift from his apparent ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032664688/National/largesse-and-threats-ahead-of-election.html
Six Cambodians Injured in Capital Land Clash
At least six people were seriously injured Wednesday in clashes between about 100 villagers demanding land compensation and 300 security personnel in front of the home of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, activists said. According to villager representative Tep Vanny, the evictees from Phnom Penh’s Boeung ...
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/clash-03132013184900.html
Longan farmers in Pailin plan factory
A co-operative of longan farmers in Pailin plans to build a processing factory to increase export capacity as output and demand rise. Meas Loeurn, the co-operative’s leader, told the Post on Wednesday rising demand from China was prompting growing numbers of farmers to cultivate the fruit. “During ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013020861252/Business/longan-farmers-in-pailin-plan-factory.html
Lifting maid ban proving a challenge
A lack of legal protections, insufficient commitment from the Malaysian government and an overworked, understaffed embassy are among the major obstacles to lifting the maid ban, according to an internal government report obtained yesterday. Penned by the Ministry of Interior, the 12-page brief details a ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013010960701/National/lifting-maid-ban-proving-a-challenge.html
Banteay Meanchey residents protest over land dispute
Thirty residents of Banteay Meanchey province gathered in front of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house Friday to seek intervention over a land dispute. The residents, representing 51 families in Ou Chrov district, said they had sued provincial authorities for seizing their land. ...
Ministries’ different interpretations, wood imports get stuck
The Vietnam Agriculture and Forestry Investment and Development Company in Hanoi is one of the two enterprises that signed a contract on importing 20,000 cubic meters of wood from Cambodia. Cambodian authorities approved the export of the volume of wood to Vietnam in 2011-2012. The ...
Official says resettlement sites are good for development
Widely different interpretations of the government’s land policy were voiced at a conference on Land Security and Housing Rights on Thursday in Phnom Penh, with civil servants defending mass relocations, while rural evictees spoke of being forced into poverty due to loss of their land. ...
Protesters Demand Anti-Eviction Activists' Release
Fifty Boeng Kak and Borei Keila residents rallied outside the Ministry of Justice yesterday and submitted a petition demanding the release of two anti-eviction activists they say have been jailed on trumped-up charges. Four representatives from the two groups were allowed to enter the ministry yesterday, ...
B Keila, B Kak continue petitioning
Free of the police resistance that thwarted their march the previous day, about 65 Borei Keila and Boeung Kak community supporters marched to the Ministry of Justice yesterday in another effort to have land dispute activists Tim Sakmony and Yorm Bopha freed from pre-trial detention ...