News

The families of four people from Pailin province’s Krinh village who have been incarcerated since March for allegedly living on state land are calling for their release. Fifty-year-old Nheb Nharn said that he and his wife, Om Som Ath, had lived on the land in Stung ...

A high-level agricultural official in Kampong Speu province has been charged with stealing thousands of dollars from paddy rice farmers after promising to deliver them land titles in January 2013, a rights group representative and a court prosecutor said yesterday. Cher Pich, 44, deputy director of ...

Representatives of the 301 families granted a social land concession in Kratie province to resolve a long-running land dispute said Sunday that they filed a report with authorities on Saturday detailing the new families that have since gathered with them in the hope of also ...

Human rights workers say the US and other countries should censure Thailand over fisheries practices that mean near-slavery for many Cambodians and others. An investigative report by the UK-based Guardian newspaper exposed serious abuses in the Thai fishing trade, where workers are cheated of pay, kept ...

Mondulkiri provincial police charged four men with illegal logging and immigration crimes after they allegedly caught the suspects collecting wood in O’Raing district. Vietnamese nationals Orng Minh Chhung, 30; Le Vantieng, 38; Tvan Taktech, 33; and Thvang Vanthai, 36, were arrested while gathering freshly cut pieces ...

The number of inmates who died in the country’s prisons in the first quarter of the year dipped to nine from 15 during the same period last year, a rights group and the prison department said. From January to April, nine prisoners—five men and four women—reportedly ...

The former director of the Preah Vihear provincial financial department has denied allegations that he embezzled an estimated $72,045 over the course of 2013, according to his defense posted on the Anti-Corruption Unit website Thursday. Meas Rathavuth, who was ordered into retirement on March 1, said ...

Hundreds of families from Kratie province’s Snuol district who were promised new plots of land after a Vietnamese rubber firm evicted them last month have complained that provincial officials are allowing hundreds of interlopers to stake a claim instead. The 405 families were evicted from the ...

Cambodian human rights organizations say they have major concerns over a deal with Australia that could send unwanted refugees to Cambodia. The Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee says Cambodia’s track record of human rights abuse and corruption make people “living on the margins” vulnerable to abuse. Australia ...

A journalist has filed a complaint with the Pursat provincial court alleging that a soldier threatened to kill him on Sunday after he wrote a series of damning articles linking the soldier to illegal rosewood trafficking, court officials confirmed Tuesday. Both the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces ...

Verdicts will be handed down Friday in two garment protest-related cases that rights groups say were built on a weak body of evidence. The two cases occurred months apart but followed a similar narrative: Garment workers fed up with their calls for a higher monthly minimum ...

Representatives for about 250 families involved in a long-running dispute with an agri-business firm in Kompong Speu province have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc and say they will attempt to retake land that was stolen from them. About 60 of the villagers traveled to ...

Representatives of some 250 families who lost their land to a company in Kampong Speu province filed a complaint with Adhoc yesterday, saying they have yet to receive compensation, even after land measurement volunteers allegedly promised a resolution if villagers voted for the ruling party ...

More than 1,500 villagers plan to march to the Anti-Corruption Unit and National Assembly in Phnom Penh on Thursday in defiance of a fresh ban issued by City Hall prohibiting them from doing so. The villagers form a group known as the Land Communities for Peace ...

Community forest chiefs and rights groups in Oddar Meanchey province say logging is now so rampant they have finally given up hope that a U.N.-backed scheme to generate millions of dollars worth of carbon credits for the area and the country will ever get off ...

The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party said yesterday that charred human remains retrieved by a local party member in Kampong Speu province on Saturday would be handed over to human rights organisations for examination. Despite a seeming lack of evidence or investigation, opposition activists have speculated ...

A package containing charred human remains was delivered to the Cambodia National Rescue Party office in Phnom Penh yesterday morning. Despite a seeming complete absence of hard evidence, some are convinced the remains – found on Saturday at a mountain in Kampong Speu – belong to ...

Representatives of more than 400 families who watched as their homes were burned during an eviction this month in Kratie’s Snuol district were blocked by authorities yesterday as they attempted to take their grievance to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s doorstep. Though tensions initially ran high, the ...

Cambodians are worried about an influx of immigrants as the government nears a deal with Australia to accept refugees in return for cash. The two countries have been in discussion since February over plans to resettle an unspecified number of refugees in Cambodia. “Our country’s economy is ...

Villagers in Ratanakkiri province blocked National Road 78A on Thursday for more than three hours as authorities tried to push through to evict them in favor of a rubber company, police and villagers said. About 400 villagers blocked the section of the road that links O’Chum ...

Municipal and military police on Wednesday blocked a group of about 100 displaced farmers from Kratie province who were attempting to deliver a petition to the Cambodian Red Cross’ Phnom Penh headquarters calling on the group to help them in their land dispute with a ...

More than 400 people clashed with police and military police in Ratanakkiri province on Wednesday as authorities attempted to bulldoze their houses to make way for a rubber company plantation, villagers said. Authorities managed to bulldoze the houses of about 200 families, who they said had ...

The Swift Rubber Company demolished three homes in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Chum district last week without compensation, telling about 120 families to leave immediately or face the destruction of more houses, according to villagers and rights group Adhoc. ...

Authorities in Stung Treng province discovered and confiscated a haul of luxury wood that was being transported in three trucks on Sunday night from the protected Virachey National Park, officials said Tuesday. Provincial deputy police chief Yorn Din said the trucks were stopped and searched as ...