News

Local cadastral land officials, a district governor and RCAF personnel all own plots of a social land concession in Preah Vihear originally intended to be distributed to poor villagers, local rights group Adhoc alleged. In 2007, the government granted 556 hectares of land in Choam Ksan ...

Since last year, up to a half of nearly 8,000 hectares of community forest has been encroached upon and cleared in Oddar Meanchey province’s Banteay Ampil district by soldiers, community representatives said yesterday. Din Heng, chief of Ang Dong Bor community, said the army has cleared ...

Four Preah Vihear villagers filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc yesterday, requesting help in gaining permission to farm 93 hectares of land the Provincial Forestry Administration barred them from last year. The four complainants represent 65 families who have farmed the area in Kolen district ...

Three men locked in a land dispute with Phnom Penh authorities were questioned both by the police and the municipal court Wednesday after they were accused of destroying property on land the government has swapped with a private firm. Ly Bun Heang, said that he, his ...

More than 100 police and security guards, including  riot squad members, were deployed to the capital’s Boeung Kak lake community yesterday to block a protest that, at times, involved only three shouting women. About 50 members of the Boeung Kak community tried to march from Village ...

Responding to a new plan put forward by members of the Bo­eung Kak community and NGOs last month, Phnom Penh Municipal Hall announced on Friday that it had drawn up a list of all families who remain excluded from the 12.44 hectares Prime Minister Hun ...

Local authorities met with Boeung Kak community members yesterday to register villagers left out of the oft-criticised resettlement scheme as a first step to providing them with titles and onsite housing. More than 10 officials including police, commune and village chief, as well as representatives of ...

A village chief and an ethnic minority Tompuon villager were the latest people brought before the Ratanakkiri court for questioning after a private company accused villagers of destroying its property. Kvas Cheav, 57, village chief of Par Or in Keh Chung commune, told the Post that ...

Oddar Meanchey province deputy governor Lon An yesterday confirmed CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat’s involvement in a trio of sugar cane plantations that rights groups took to the National Human rights Commission of Thailand last week, but denied their allegations of rights abuses. The deputy ...

Asia’s largest sugar company has been accused of torching hundreds of homes, orchestrating the imprisonment of a pregnant activist and using security forces to beat villagers – among a raft of other grave human rights abuses – by communities in Oddar Meanchey province. The allegations levelled ...

About 50 police, soldiers and environmental officials yesterday demolished two houses and cut down thousands of trees belonging to families who are locked in a land dispute with MDS Import Export Co, owned by tycoon Try Pheap, villagers in Pursat province claimed. Fellow villager Khouch ...

Five Koh Kong families embroiled in an ongoing land dispute with Heng Huy Agriculture Company were accompanied by more than 50 villagers yesterday as they went to court to clarify why they are asking for contracts signed with the company to be annulled. Pok Yon, ...

More than 300 protesters seized two company trucks outside the Kratie office of Korean-owned timber company Think Biotech Co yesterday as protests by villagers who allege land-grabbing continued for a second day. “We have seized the company’s two trucks to ask the company to come ...

Eight ethnic Tampuon villagers from Ratanakkiri’s Bakeo district will file a lawsuit at provincial court today alleging that more than 70 hectares of protected forest have been illegally cleared by a police official and six villagers from a neighbouring commune. Ting Kham Se, 52, of Laminh ...

More than 100 people from two communes in Kratie province’s Sambor district gathered yesterday for a three-day protest in front of the provincial office of Think Biotech, a Korean-owned timber company villagers say is encroaching on their land. As of yesterday evening, 10 armed policemen ...

Nearly 90 representatives of 137 families in Battambang province, some of whom include former Khmer Rouge cadres, protested for a second day in Phnom Penh yesterday, claiming authorities had seized land they had held since the late 1990s. Ul Yan who was among protesters at Butom ...

A well-known community representative who has long battled alleged land-grabbing by economic land concessionaire Pheapimex Group was arrested on fraud accusations and jailed in Pursat province’s Krakor district yesterday.Fellow community representative Lun Sivy, 42, said Kuch Veng, a member of the Cambodian Peace Network, was ...

A local official and four ethnic minority Tompuon villagers appeared in a Ratanakkiri court on Friday to face accusations of land-grabbing and protesting against a private company that purchased their land in 2007, authorities said yesterday. Rocham Pheun, an assistant to the chief of Keh Chung ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday charged two staffers of Vietnamese rubber concessionaire Hoang Anh Ratanakkiri (CRD) with causing intentional damage for allegedly setting fire to several homes belonging to a landowner with whom they were embroiled in a land dispute, deputy prosecutor Mom Vanda said. ...

A year to the day since armed soldiers stormed into the remote village of Pro Mar in Kratie province, killing a 14-year-old girl, arresting her husband and evicting hundreds of families, Sreng Pho still has nightmares. “I’m really scared when I think back to that day ...

Around 30 residents from Boeung Kok, Borei Kei and Thmor kol communities gathered and knelt down Monday in front of the Royal Palace to seek intervention from the King to release jailed land activist Yorm Bopha. In the petition, they asked him to intervene the ...

Human rights group Adhoc yesterday criticized a commune official in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district for accusing one of its staff of incitement and spreading disinformation after villagers traveled to Phnom Penh in March to protest over a land dispute with well known businessman Try ...

The Thai owners of a pair of sugar plantations in Koh Kong province accused of forcing hundreds of farmers off their land will give the land back if it can be proved that those evicted legally own the land, rights workers and a village representative ...

Rough[ly] 40 representatives of some 370 families locked in a years-long land dispute with a rubber concessionaire in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district demonstrated outside the Phnom Penh offices of Adhoc yesterday to publicise their situation. The villagers, many of whom are family members of soldiers ...