News

The government has lashed out at the U.S. and E.U. over their criticism of the detention of five current and former rights workers in Cambodia for more than a year, adopting the language of its critics by calling their statements “politically motivated.” ...

Some 200 hectares of forest in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary have been cleared and sold for up to $400 per hectare – allegedly with an official’s blessing – while an additional 700 hectares around the protected area face clearing. ...

Four senior officials for rights group Adhoc will remain behind bars after the Supreme Court on Monday upheld the Court of Appeal’s ruling that they should be held in detention while awaiting trial, but gave no reason for the decision. ...

Nearly 80 international and Cambodian civil society groups have signed a joint statement urging the government to halt its crackdown on activists and release five current and former senior officials of rights group Adhoc who have been awaiting trial since May. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said he would consider releasing four human rights officers and an election official – who have been detained since April – after the verdicts in their cases, but he said two members of the opposition will receive no such consideration. ...

Rhona Smith, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia, will start her 10-day visit to the Kingdom today, with plans to meet government officials, opposition party activists and civil society workers. Am Sam Ath, a senior coordinator for rights group Licadho, said he was ...

The Rattanakiri provincial court will hear a case against provincial officials brought by rights group Adhoc on Wednesday, which accuses them of failing to prevent illegal logging in Lumphat district. ...

An angry mob stormed a military police compound in Kratie province on Wednesday to retrieve two trucks loaded with wood that were confiscated for not having proper licenses, and two villagers were seriously injured, a rights worker claimed. ...

While the luxury timber trade continues to eat away at Cambodia’s forests, there is another industry that poses a growing threat to the Kingdom’s trees: pepper farms.   ...

Activists behind the “Black Monday” protests said on Sunday they would demonstrate yet again today despite the threat of more arrests, this time in front of the Appeal Court, where four employees of rights group Adhoc and an election official will have their bail hearing ...

Exploration company Angkor Gold Corp is working with NGOs to educate residents of Pate commune’s Plang village in Ratanakiri’s Ou Ya Dav district after villagers refused to give the company permission to explore for gold on their land. ...

More than 200 people representing three Preah Vihear province communities were set to discuss land disputes yesterday when police broke up their public forum, according to Tork Hong, a representative of a local community from nearby Prey Lang forest.   ...

Four senior officers from local rights group Adhoc and a former officer who now works for the National Election Committee (NEC) were imprisoned on Monday on bribery charges over a sex scandal involving deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha. ...

The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) questioned officers of local human rights group Adhoc late into the evening for a second straight day on Thursday over claims that they had instructed the alleged mistress of deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha to deny their affair. ...

Rights group Adhoc has no plans to file a complaint against Khom Chandaraty, the alleged mistress of acting opposition president Kem Sokha, despite her accusing various members of encouraging her to give false testimony during police questioning earlier this month. ...

Villagers from Preah Vihear’s Kulen district, where last week two rubber company guard posts were torched, yesterday alleged security guards from the same company had looted their homes and threatened to burn them. ...

Up to 4,000 mostly ethnic minority people in Mondulkiri’s Keo Seima district are facing a water shortage after the local supplier announced service would be suspended due to impending widescale drought. ...

On Friday, it will have been a month since Prime Minister Hun Sen took the stage during the opening of the Environment Ministry’s palatial new headquarters in Phnom Penh to announce that 1 million hectares had been confiscated from wayward landholders and would be doled ...

The U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia met with local rights advocates on Monday as she began her second fact-finding mission to the country, one of the meeting’s attendees said.   ...

Local rights group Adhoc has cried foul after roughly 1,200 square metres on 2 hectares of land that used to be home to an airport in Preah Vihear province have been granted to a local official to build a house. ...

Police in Ratanakkiri province on Tuesday ordered rights group Adhoc to call off a planned workshop meant to inform local indigenous communities of their rights, claiming the NGO had failed to secure the necessary permission from authorities. ...

While vast tracts of Cambodia remain concentrated in the hands of a few and accusations of land grabbing remain rife, the broader distribution of land is more than equitable and could never lead to an uprising, the government official in charge of finding solutions to ...

Kratie’s provincial authorities on Friday gave an ultimatum to over 100 families living in Damrei Phong commune in Chhloung district, telling them to get off their land or face legal action.   ...

The collective land of indigenous communities in Cambodia will continue to face encroachment from economic land concessions and the actions of private companies in the future despite the Cambodian Government’s moratorium on granting ELC licenses, according to a Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) report ...