សម្បទានដីសេដ្ឋកិច្ច និងចំការ

Cambodia’s economic land concession (ELC) policies are hindering development far more than helping it and beginning to erode the country’s hard-won stability, Cambodia’s special rapporteur warned yesterday. “As I have noted in relation to other sectors in Cambodia, the existence of the legal framework on paper ...

The Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court has summoned four villagers embroiled in a long-running land dispute over charges of alleged incitement  and violence involving a company owned by the wife of government minister, a court official said yesterday. Two summoned vllagers, from Kompong Tralach district’s Ta Ches commune, faced similar ...

Among thousands of residents in the Boeung Kak Lake district of the capital whose land has been targeted for redevelopment by a Chinese-financed real estate company, Tep Vanny carried a letter explaining the “sadness and suffering” caused by the project — which has turned Phnom ...

A Malaysian company has been granted three tracts of land totaling more than 23,000 hectares for oil palm and rubber plantations in Preah Vihear province, according to documents submitted to the Malaysian stock exchange. The acquisition flout the legal maximum of concession land that a single ...

Boeung Kak and Borei Keila villagers embroiled in longstanding land disputes with two private companies in Phnom Penh say the authorities are protecting business interests over the public, as thousands of families lose their homes under forced evictions. This has turned the protesters and government officials ...

An international rights group yesterday said the situation of human rights in Cambodia was continuing to worsen and accused the government of being “at war” with its own citizens over access to land. In its briefing paper, the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) also said that Cambodia was ...

Residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities delivered petitions to the offices of the European Union and World Bank yesterday in their ongoing attempts to enlist Cambodia’s aid donors in their efforts to have jailed anti-eviction activists released from Prey Sar prison. ...

An ongoing project to build hotels, luxury villas and a casino on Kampot province’s Bokor Mountain is a threat to the area’s unique animal and plant species, according to two new studies. Local conglomerate Sokimex Group has been granted property development rights on the entire mountain, ...

Investment in the Cambodian construction sector reached US$1.38 billion in the first seven months of 2012, an 85-percent rise over the same period last year, according to figures from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction. During the January to July period this year, the ministry ...

Economic land concessions strewn over the remote Western Siem Pang forest, in Stung Treng province, are threatening the survival of Cambodia’s national bird, the giant ibis, a report reveals. The forest, flanking the Kingdom’s border with Laos,  is home to five critically endangered bird species, yet ...

Residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood burned straw effigies symbolizing corrupt government officials yesterday to mark the one-year anniversary of the demolition of eight homes at the contested site. Roughly 100 protesters gathered at the site of the demolitions and set fire to eight scarecrow-like effigies- one ...

Once a majority ethnic minority province where Tampoun, Jarai and Kreung speakers outnumbered the Khmer, Ratanakkiri is now one of the country’s fastest growing provinces where inhabitants of lowland provinces, particularly Kompong Cham, Svay Rieng and Prey Veng, are flocking in search of a better ...

Ethnic Bunong villagers in Mondolkiri province’s Pech Chreada district are bitterly divided over how best to protect their ancestral land amid efforts by authorities to map it in preparation for property titles. Bosra commune chief Yoeth Sarin said that since student volunteers-deployed across the country as ...

International human rights groups added their voices to the chorus of criticism over the detention of two female anti-eviction activists from the Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities, accusing the court of failing to honor fair trial standards. In a statement issued late Thursday, Amnesty International, ...

More than 200 motorcycle-taxi drivers gathered in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park yesterday, for the third time, to protest against human rights groups who have characterized the recent arrest of two anti-eviction activists as politically motivated. The little known taxi drivers’ union, Cambodia for Confederation Development Association ...

Human rights monitoring groups and Cambodian activists are calling for an international boycott of Tate & Lyle and Domino Sugar, who do business with sugar suppliers accused of participating in government-sanctioned land grabs and illegal evictions throughout rural Cambodia. According to the Cambodian League for the ...

High-profile Phnom Penh businesswoman Chhin Sokountheary has called on Prime Minister Hun Sen to return 33 hectares of prime land in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district to her company, which lost the rights to it when the government claimed the land in July. Sokountheary said she ...

Japanese Ambassador Kuroki Masafumi met with human rights workers on Friday to discuss land rights in Cambodia, particularly implementation of the law and the use of force in evictions, two of the participants at the meeting said. Adhoc President Thun Saray, Licadho President Pung Chhiv Kek and ...

Imprisoned Yorm Bopha has either been unjustly targeted for her role in Boeung Kak lake eviction protests or is responsible for the vicious beating of two motodops, depending on which protesters’ chants were true yesterday. It was land evictees versus motodops in the capital as two ...

Angkor Gold Corp has acquired a new economic land concession as it gains full control of its other concessions with the purchase of another mining company, according to officials. According to a statement released last week, Angkor Gold has purchased Liberty Mining International Pty Ltd (Liberty), ...

Members of Bunong ethnic minority forest group in Kratie province who accused local police of barring their community patrols in search of illegal logging were told by a Forestry Administration official yesterday that they had no authority to operate. Mr. [Peit] Kun Pedor [head of ...

A 65-year-old woman who has spent months sleeping under a staircase at Borei Keila yesterday became the second land-rights activist sent to Prey Sar prison in little more than 24 hours. Phnom Penh Municipal Court investigating judge Ly Leabmeng questioned villager representative Tim Sakmony for almost ...

Protesters from both neighborhoods gathered in front of the Phnom Penh Court on Wednesday to demand the release of the three. Phnom Penh Municipal Court is holding two more land protesters, following the detention of one woman on Tuesday. The two activists, from the Borei Keila neighborhood, ...

Contractors hired by Cambodian land brokers bulldozed through four hectares of villagers’ crops in Poipet town on Monday, breaching a truce contract that protected the villagers’ land until January 1 next year. According to the contract, the families residing on land claimed by 11 independent Cambodian ...