Human rights

Criticism of the controversial Xayaburi hydro dam project in northern Laos is mounting in Thailand – the country set to enjoy most of the electricity if the project is completed. Representatives from 130 Thai civil-society organisations yesterday published a statement backing a report that outlines an ...

The United Nations human rights office called on Cambodia on Tuesday to carry out a full investigation into the killing of an anti-logging activist and to ensure the safety of witnesses to the crime in which a policeman was also shot dead. Chut Wutty, director of ...

About 20 former residents for the Borei Keila community protested outside the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday after a judge delayed a hearing regarding their land dispute with the powerful Phanimex company, a lawyer for the residents said. The residents filed a complaint against Phanimex ...

With his slaying yesterday in the jungles of Koh Kong province, Chut Wutty becomes one of the highest-profile members yet on a dark list of Cambodian activists who have been killed for making a stand against greed and corruption. Although the details of his death remain ...

A dam project set to flood thousands of hectares of protected forest and displace about 1,500 indigenous minority villagers in one of Koh Kong province’s most precious ecosystems should be scrapped, opposition Sam Rainsy Party MP Son Chhay said yesterday. The 109-megawatt dam project in the ...

A large North American union has called on US retail giant Walmart to take immediate action against one of its seafood suppliers in Thailand accused of holding Cambodian workers in debt bondage while barely providing them with enough money to eat. The United Food and Commercial Workers ...

Opposition parliamentarian Mu Sochua has taken aim at Australian mining companies eyeing the Kingdom’s resources, travelling to their home soil to lobby the halls of power. Mu Sochua cited fears that Australian companies awarded exploration concessions in Ratanakkiri and Mondulkiri provinces will treat ethnic minorities there ...

Cambodia migrant workers seeking to leave allegedly exploitative conditions at the Phatthana Seafood factory in southern Thailand said yesterday that they were still being forced to pay to get their passports back. The factory, which exports fish to buyers across the world including Walmart, has come ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s call on Tuesday to strengthen cooperation among ASEAN members to protect the rights of migrant workers echoed recent comments by rights groups who say further protections are necessary as the 2015 deadline for an integrated economic community looms. As that deadline approaches, ...

Some of Southeast Asia’s most acute problems were left unmentioned yesterday when government-sanctioned civil society groups met with Asean leaders at the regional bloc’s summit in Phnom Penh. NGOs from eight of the 10 Asean states attended the meeting, but the Indonesian delegation pulled out, complaining ...

Approximately 65 percent of the country’s 3,492 registered international and local NGOs are inactive, leaving only about 1,350 active NGOs in the country, according to a report issued yesterday by NGO network Cooperation Committee for Cambodia (CCC). The report, “CSO Contributions to the Development of Cambodia ...

The Philippines thrust the South China Sea dispute to the forefront of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting yesterday, causing the topic to dominate discussions. Myanmar by-elections and North Korea also featured prominently on the eve of today’s ASEAN summit, overshadowing the foreign ministers’ planned focus on ...

Representing more than 1,200 delegates from the 10 Asean countries, the Asean Peoples’ Forum issued a highly critical statement yesterday to visiting Asean leaders concerning issues such as land evictions, effects of large-scale hydropower projects and the opaque nature of drafting the Asean Human Rights ...

About half of the land concessions granted since 1994 are in the hands of Chinese companies, according to data released yesterday by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights. Ouch Leng, CCHR land reform project coordinator, said that from 1994 to 2012, the Cambodian government granted 4,615,745 ...

Civil society groups from Thailand will boycott a meeting between NGOs and regional government representatives at this week’s ASEAN summit because their country’s delegate “does not represent Thai civil society”, a spokeswoman said yesterday. Premrudee Daoroung, a representative of Thai civil society groups, said her country’s ...

Government officials did not, and Lao students could not, attend yesterday’s Asean Peoples’ Forum in Phnom Penh, where more than 1,500 members of civil society groups discussed the region’s most pressing issues, including human rights, poverty, land usurping and domestic violence. The three-day forum, which is not ...

The European Union has launched a $4.5 million program aimed at increasing food security among indigenous minorities in Ratanakkiri province, including those whose land has been affected by the growing number of economic land concessions in the area. Speaking on the sidelines of the launch in ...

Protecting human rights, especially those of Cambodian migrant workers traversing borders to countries such as Malaysia, dominated discussions at yesterday’s ASEAN Peoples’ Forum, one of two competing pre-summit forums that claim to be giving a voice to Cambodians. Speaking at yesterday’s forum, Seng Sakda, director-general ...

An NGO director and a youth leader from two little-known organizations were elected by 2,779 NGO and youth association members at a meeting on March 15 to represent civil society at a meeting with Asean leaders next week, according to a statement released by state-run ...

The European Union had provided more than US$265,000 to a land reform project that aimed to shift political will and opinion towards land and human rights in Cambodia, development partners said yesterday. The Cambodian Centre for Human Rights will spearhead the Cambodian Land Law Reform Project, ...

Residents of an ethnic minority village in Mondolkiri’s Seima Protected Forest on Monday became the first community in the province to receive a communal land title, land management officials said yesterday. About 500 indigenous Bunong families from Andoung Kraloeng village in O’Reang district’s Sen Monorom commune ...

The government has granted private companies the right to develop about 65,000 hectares of land in wildlife sanctuaries, national parks and on public reserves since January 1, data from a human rights group reveals. Ouch Leng, land reform project coordinator for the Cambodian Center for Human ...

Opening statements started yesterday in a trial pitting Kompong Chhnang province villagers against the wife of Minister of Industry Suy Sem over a long-standing land dispute. However, the plaintiffs and human rights workers monitoring the trial criticized yesterday’s proceedings, which were allowed to proceed despite ...

The government last month granted four companies a total 23,000 hectares of land concessions for agro-industry projects and a special economic zone (SEZ), according to human rights groups, which said it obtained the information from government documents. An additional 500 hectares inside a wildlife sanctuary were ...