News

About 20 people protesting their pending eviction from their homes near Phnom Penh International Airport blocked people from leaving or entering the airport for about half an hour yesterday, before a large force of police broke up their protest. In July, authorities told 182 families ...

During his speech last week at the swearing-in ceremony of Phnom Penh’s new governor, Pa Socheatvong, Interior Minister Sar Kheng noted that managing Cambodia’s capital is by no means an easy task. While critics of [former Phnom Penh governor] Mr. [Kep] Chuktema note his failure ...

2012 has been an impressive year for Cambodia’s economic resilience. Among the many sectors that had positively grown are the construction and property development [sic] and they are expected to be among the highest growth achievers in the current year as well. In 2012, the ...

The Cambodian Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a jailed land rights activist’s appeal to be released on bail, drawing criticism from rights groups who said the whole case smacked of political interference and should be thrown out. “I am having heart, respiratory, and stomach ...

Faced with widespread evictions and opaque private sector deals, activists in Cambodia are calling on the government to be more open and transparent about land concessions, beef up mechanisms for resolving land disputes, and abide by the rule of law. It is estimated that ...

At least six people were seriously injured Wednesday in clashes between about 100 villagers demanding land compensation and 300 security personnel in front of the home of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, activists said. According to villager representative Tep Vanny, the evictees from Phnom Penh’s Boeung ...

Four families who were violently evicted from Borei Keila in January last year built shelters yesterday in the rubbish where their houses once stood, claiming the land still belonged to them. The evictees erected small frames on the land, in the capital’s Prampi Makara district, irritating ...

The Phnom Penh Municipality and delegates from Cleveland, Tennessee, yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding to establish sister-city status, officials said. “While we are welcoming [the delegates], there are people outside who are demanding that we solve their housing problems,” said Phnom Penh Governor Kep ...

The U.N.’s expert on housing rights has cited the World Bank’s failure to help thousands of families evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood as a prime example of why the bank needs to make human rights a focus of its land sector programs worldwide. At ...

About 100 women forcibly evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak neighbourhood protested outside City Hall yesterday asking for upgrades to the compensation they accepted under duress to give up their homes. The women said they were representing 739 of the more than 3,000 families forced out ...

Nean Narin, a humble man and father of three children, says his family is going hungry. Narin lives in the village of Boeung Kak, situated on the edge of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. For years, he and other villagers relied on the Boeung Kak Lake ...

Eight representatives of Phnom Penh communities involved in land disputes were allowed to present their petitions to the Council of Ministers yesterday after authorities blocked about 200 of their fellow petitioners from gathering in front of the Peace Palace. During a meeting with the representatives, Bun ...

Capitalising on recent worldwide attention to their plight, some 200 villagers who say they’ve been robbed of their homes and land staged a vivid and stylised protest yesterday aimed at President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, calling for intervention in Phnom Penh’s land-titling ...

Two land activists from forced evictions in Phnom Penh will not be released on bail as they await trial on incitement charges widely seen as an attack on free speech. The two women, Yorm Bopha and Tim Sak Mony, were arrested in early September and accused ...

Boeung Kak lake land evictions protester Tep Vanny has been honoured for years of activism by receiving an award from an international organisation that recognises the role of women in promoting human rights. Vanny, 32, who has been imprisoned, assaulted and threatened for fighting evictions at ...

Boeung Kak and Borei Keila villagers embroiled in longstanding land disputes with two private companies in Phnom Penh say the authorities are protecting business interests over the public, as thousands of families lose their homes under forced evictions. This has turned the protesters and government officials ...

Resident of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood burned straw effigies symbolizing corrupt government officials yesterday to make the one-year anniversary of demolition of eight homes at the contest site. Roughly 100 protesters gathered at the site of the demolitions and set fire to eight scarecrow-like effigies ...

Free of the police resistance that thwarted their march the previous day, about 65 Borei Keila and Boeung Kak community supporters marched to the Ministry of Justice yesterday in another effort to have land dispute activists Tim Sakmony and Yorm Bopha freed from pre-trial detention ...

A 65-year-old woman who has spent months sleeping under a staircase at Borei Keila yesterday became the second land-rights activist sent to Prey Sar prison in little more than 24 hours. Phnom Penh Municipal Court investigating judge Ly Leabmeng questioned villager representative Tim Sakmony for almost ...

Prominent Boeung Kak villager and protester Yorm Bopha was yesterday jailed in Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison, after she and her husband – en route to check for their names on a voting register – were pounced on by police in plain clothes in what ...

Two months after their release from Prey Sar prison, members of the so-called Boeung Kak 13 were yesterday at the forefront of more calls for authorities to mark out land promised to their community. About 50 Boeung Kak women and children gathered outside to urge authorities to ...

Thirteen Boeung Kak lake women who were sentenced to two and a half years in jail on Thursday following a lawyer-free trial that lasted just three hours will appeal their convictions, their distraught supporters said yesterday. As the reality of the trial, which rights groups have ...

The World Bank has denied a report that it is preparing to fund a new education project in Cambodia, 10 months after the bank froze all new lending to Cambodia to protest evictions and Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak lake. In The, an undersecretary of state ...

One of the two Boeung Kak lake residents released on bail from Prey Sar prison on Friday is prepared to be a witness in the appeal trial of the 13 women convicted and sent to jail last month – but only if he is invited ...