ព័ត៌មាន​

Land disputes are expected to be a hot issue in next year’s election, overshadowing perennial issues such as illegal immigration, destruction of forests, corruption, and unemployment. Prime Minister Hun Sen himself has acknowledged that the government’s failure to resolve the issue will mean handing ammunition to ...

THE ten-member Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is used to fending off “interference” by the West in the internal affairs of some of its members. In recent years the human-rights record of the regime in Myanmar has been the tenderest of these sore spots. ...

The National Election Committee (NEC) has removed opposition leader Sam Rainsy from the voter list for next year’s national election on the grounds that he is a convicted criminal, an NEC official said yesterday. The decision means that even if Mr. Rainsy is granted a royal ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Saturday accused unnamed individuals of attempting to grab land in Kompong Thom province by invoking his wife’s name and ordered one of his sons to investigate and give back any misappropriated land. According to Mr. Hun Sen, unscrupulous individuals were ...

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 ...

Villagers took an increasingly vocal stand on land issues during rare opportunities to speak with National Assembly members this past year, according to the National Democratic Institute. During the most recent town hall-style Constituency Dialogues, started by NDI in 2004 to promote contact between assembly members ...

The country’s foremost campaigning monk, Loun Sovath, received the Martin Ennals Award in Geneva on Tuesday for his efforts to document the plight of people fighting against eviction in Cambodia. The award, which honors one human rights defender each year, is valued at $21,300, a purse ...

An outstanding court warrant for Phnom Penh International University rector Tep Kolap was dropped after the intervention of the premier and his wife, according to Phnom Penh Municipal Police Chief Touch Naruth. Declining to comment on the extent of the premier’s intervention, deputy commander of ...

A district police chief in Kampong Chhnang province has been removed from his post over his alleged involvement in the sale of almost 130 hectares of state land to private buyers, provincial officials said yesterday. Kim Sareth, the chief of police in Toek Phos district, was ...

CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat visited families embroiled in a long-standing land dispute with a Thai-owned sugar company on Monday in an attempt to convince them to drop their complaints against the firm at the court, villagers and officials said yesterday. The visit comes as pressure ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday questioned six people, including a provincial director of water resources and a commune chief, over allegations that they cleared part of a flooded forest in Kompong Thom to illegally construct reservoirs on the Tonle Sap. Earlier this month, military ...

Less than two weeks after being released from prison, the 13 women convicted in May for protesting evictions at Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community staged their first public action yesterday. The women, joined by about as many neighbors, submitted petitions to the Australian, French, U.K. and ...

After years of futile protests demanding their land back, villagers forcibly evicted by sugarcane plantations connected to CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat launched a boycott campaign yesterday targeting the international firms that sell his sugar. Thousands of families accuse the senator’s plantations of forcing them off ...

Tek Nim is well versed in dealing with adversity. In year nine, she dropped out of school, began working on the family farm and finally became resigned to the belief that her brightest prospect was to leave Omlaing commune, in Kampong Speu province’s Thpong district, ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday 700 volunteers from the Cambodian People’s Party had fanned out across eight provinces to measure properties and provide titles to villagers who have been displaced by land disputes. Speaking to about 10,000 villagers in the Kroch Chhmar district of Kampong ...

A Chinese mining firm has donated about $200,000 toward the building of a new district headquarters for the ruling CPP in Preah Vihear province, officials said yesterday. Kong Makara, director of the provincial industry, mines and energy office, said that Chinese company Cambodian Iron Holding and ...

Sao Saroeun, a Phnom Penh resident arrested last month for demonstrating against CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin’s Boeng Kak real estate project and released on bail last week, urged the courts to release 13 women still being detained at Prey Sar prison yesterday. The 13 women were ...

The Ministry of Justice will not press the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to review the case of 13 Boeng Kak residents sentenced to jail last month for demonstrating against a CPP senator’s real estate project, despite asking the court to consider releasing the women. Now that ...

The Justice Ministry has written to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court requesting that it review the case of 13 Boeng Kak women recently jailed for demonstrations against a CPP senator’s real estate project, a ministry official said yesterday. Bunyai Narin, deputy Cabinet chief for the Justice ...

He Guoqiang, a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, yesterday announced a donation of about $110,000 worth of office equipment to the CPP, National Assembly Cabinet Chief Koam Kosal said. The donation was made during the official visit to Cambodia of a ...

China treasured its traditional friendship with Cambodia, and would take strategic approaches to step up the bilateral cooperation to a new height, visiting senior leader of the Communist Party of China He Guoqiang said here on Tuesday. In his meeting with Heng Samrin, He spoke ...

Residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community yesterday said they visited four former neighbors now serving jail terms in Prey Sar prison for demonstrating against CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin’s real estate project and urged the women to end their reported hunger strike. A prison official, however, insisted there was ...

Boeng Kak protesters continued their fight for the release of 14 women and one man imprisoned since May 24, delivering a petition to the Senate and the Japanese Embassy on Friday that they hope will spur new intervention in the long-running land dispute. More than 100 ...