Law and judiciary

The parent company of U.S. apparel giant Timberland has launched an investigation into claims that security guards at a special economic zone in Kandal province viciously attacked the workers that make the brand’s clothing and footwear, a company representative said Wednesday. ...

National Assembly President Heng Samrin has refused to forward to Prime Minister Hun Sen a letter from an opposition lawmaker asking that a group of rubber plantations owned by Vietnamese Ar­my commanders be canceled because they violate the Constitution. ...

Cambodia’s “Economic Free­dom”—a broad measure of how well individuals and businesses can create and protect their wealth —was classed as “mostly unfree” in a new report released by the Washington-based Heritage Foun­dation, which identified corruption and bureaucracy as impediments to free markets. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has thrown out a defamation case against Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong that was filed by Khmer Power Party (KPP) President Sourn Serey Ratha in December after Mr. Namhong called the politician’s supporters terrorists. ...

National Police Commissioner Neth Savoeun on Tuesday blamed weak border controls in Malaysia and Singapore for an influx of cocaine, methamphetamine and other dangerous narcotics into Cambodia. ...

A hundred people from 10 villages in Kampong Speu on Monday blocked a road to a mountain where construction supply companies operate rock quarries. ...

Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng said yesterday that his decision regarding a request from the National Police to amend the drug law will depend on the results of a study by the National Authority for Combating Drugs on drug addicts currently serving ...

A group of Boeung Chhouk village residents being asked to vacate to make room for a new road met yesterday with a senior Council of Ministers official in a bid to resolve the long-running dispute. However, they walked away with nothing but the possibility of ...

Police officials yesterday called for tougher sentencing of drug dealers and for the government to make it “easier and faster [for police] to seize their property”, as the Interior Ministry’s annual drugs conference wrapped in the capital. ...

The nation’s drug czar yesterday described a prison and rehab centre system in which drugs were being sold under the noses of the authorities and suggested police estimates of the number of drug users in Cambodia were “not enough” as he spoke at the Interior ...

Institution-based sex crimes against children and the threat of online pedophiles are a “growing concern” in Cambodia, child protection organisation APLE said in its annual report yesterday. ...

The number of people arrested on drug-related charges in Cambodia more than doubled last year, according to a report by the National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD). About 7,000 people were arrested last year, compared to just 3,142 in 2014, an increase that authorities are ...

The government is refusing to release copies of letters it claims to have sent to timber traders Try Pheap and Lim Bunna giving them permission to collect already felled wood on a pair of canceled economic land concessions (ELCs) inside a wildlife sanctuary. ...

Roughly 30 villagers locked in a land dispute with Koh Kong Sugar protested at a construction site yesterday where they say the company was attempting to erect a concrete barrier on disputed land. ...

Mong Reththy Group, one of the Kingdom’s largest agro-industrial conglomerates, insisted yesterday that it had settled arrears on its palm oil concession more than six months ago, contrary to local media reports stating the company owed concession rental fees dating back nearly 20 years. ...

Public officials and stakeholders drafting new access to information legislation listened yesterday as speakers underlined the importance of incorporating public feedback into the long-awaited law. ...

As a national crackdown on illegal logging rumbles on, Try Pheap, Cambodia’s most prominent timber tycoon, issued a public denial of reports that he was linked to an economic land concession (ELC) where authorities found hundreds of cubic metres of potentially illegal timber. ...

Following a nationwide spate of violent gun crime over the past few months, the government has called on City Hall for help in its crackdown on illegal firearms, a problem one Ministry of Interior official laid at the feet of authorities themselves. ...

In a report released last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) came to the predictable—and mostly well-supported—conclusion that Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government was failing in its duty to protect its people. ...

Efforts to empower women at a sub-national level are drastically under-funded, according to research released yesterday. ...

Nearly four decades after fleeing Cambodia as a child, a tearful Michael Vannak Khem Misie­wicz returned to his home country in De­cember 2010 on the U.S. Navy guid­ed-missile destroyer he commanded; his fall from grace has been equally dramatic. ...

The Ministry of Justice will request a salary raise for all of its judges, clerks and prosecutors, and has plans to create mobile court hearings, according to court officials yesterday. They will need the approval of Prime Minister Hun Sen as well as King Norodom ...

Large volumes of cigarettes are being smuggled from Cambodia to Vietnam as the Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday approaches, despite Vietnamese authorities’ efforts to deter the situation. ...

A protest against city hall’s decision to clear residents’ land for a new road on Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changvar peninsula without paying compensation yesterday entered its second day. ...