News
Boeung Kak activist to seek bail
A bail hearing for imprisoned Boeung Kak lake land activist Yorm Bopha, 29, will be held this morning at the Supreme Court, her husband, Lous Sakhorn, said yesterday. Bopha was arrested on September 4 last year and charged with intentional violence over the assault ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032764717/National/boeung-kak-activist-to-seek-bail.html
Construction begins at bloody eviction site
More than four years after the violent forced eviction of about 800 families from Dey Krahorm in the capital’s high-rent Tonle Bassac commune, small-scale construction is finally beginning on the site. In the past month, the skeletons of a future barbecue restaurant and a beer garden ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032764726/National/construction-begins-at-bloody-eviction-site.html
Houses bulldozed because of land
Sihanoukville authorities bulldozed homes in the Steung Hav district on Tuesday following a verdict made by Sihanoukville Provincial Court. In the demolition, authorities had used about 100 police officers and several machines to bulldoze around 18 houses. The land had been a topic of ...
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=YTI4Y2VjMzgyMmZ
Thai Representative Meets With Koh Kong ‘Blood Sugar’ Families
Some 200 Koh Kong farmers locked in a long-running land dispute with two sugar plantations met Tuesday with a representative of the Thailand-based owners for the first time since the land dispute began in 2006. Khamrom Phochai, a Thai national and representative of Thailand’s Khon Kaen ...
Two Banong Groups to Get Communal Titles
Two ethnic Banong communities in Mondolkiri province’s Keo Seima district have completed the final stage in the process to receive rare collective property titles, and are set to receive ownership documents early next month, an official at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) said. Kan Vibol, ...
Boeng Kak Families Pitch a New Solution to Land Dispute
A group of Phnom Penh residents locked in a long-running land dispute with a real estate project owned by CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin are pitching City Hall a plan they hope will prevent them from being evicted and keep them close to home. “We ...
MPs Urge Child Labor Action
A group of opposition lawmakers have written to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen urging action against a sugar factory owned by a ruling party official accused of exploiting child labor and grabbing land from villagers. Six Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) parliamentarians sent a letter dated Jan. ...
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/children-01292013174957.html
After 6 Years, No Solution in Minority's Land Case
Ethnic minority Jarai families in Ratanakkiri province locked in a land dispute with Keat Kolney, the sister of Finance Minister Keat Chhon, yesterday marked the sixth anniversary of inaction in the court compliant they filed accusing Ms. Kolney’s firm of taking 450 hectares of their ...
A road runs through them
UP AND down a 4km stretch of highway on the northern outskirts of Phnom Penh, about 3,000 of Cambodia’s Cham minority have built a life. Their distinctive Muslim culture thrives in conditions of close-knit community, a stark contrast to the shattering days the country endured ...
http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2013/01/cambodia%E2%80%99s-cham
Prosecutors tell court to drop charge in land dispute case
Prosecutors yesterday recommended that the Ratanakkiri Provincial Court drop charges against two human rights activists and a radio reporter accused in 2009 of inciting villagers involved in a land dispute against agro-business firm DM Group. Deputy prosecutor Ros Saram told the Post that because he ...
Disputed land to be returned to villagers
More than 8,000 hectares of land was cut from economic and forest land concessions owned by some of the country’s biggest tycoons and awarded to villagers last month, according to documents from the Council of Ministers. Four sub-decrees signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen order that ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013012160890/National/disputed-land-to-be-returned.html
Rights Committee Investigates Land Dispute
The government’s Human Rights Committee has visited villagers in a long-running land dispute in Battambang province to find out whether members of their community have been unfairly imprisoned in recent years for land encroachment, local authorities and villagers said yesterday. Officials from committee, which is headed ...
Sick of courts, villagers curse
In a sign that they no longer have faith in the court system, more than 100 villagers in Kampong Chhnang province placed their fates in the hands of a higher power yesterday, and prayed for misfortune to rain down on a company with whom they’ve ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/National/sick-of-courts-villagers-curse.html
Banteay Meanchey residents protest over land dispute
Thirty residents of Banteay Meanchey province gathered in front of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house Friday to seek intervention over a land dispute. The residents, representing 51 families in Ou Chrov district, said they had sued provincial authorities for seizing their land. ...
Ethnic Kreung Accuse Businessman of Threats
A group of ethnic Kreung families living in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district have accused a wealthy plantation owner of destroying their crops and threatening to evict them from their homes, local officials and villagers said yesterday. Soeun Sarath, a representative of 13 indigenous families living in Kaleng ...
Hun Sen Encourages Cambodians to Emulate Chinese-Style Wealth
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday encouraged Cambodians to strive for Chinese-style millionaire status as he inaugurated a sugar refinery located inside two controversial plantations belonging to CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat and his wife in Kompong Speu province. “I have one clear policy in strengthening the ...
Cambodian sugar plant leaves villagers bitter
Though the mood was congratulatory yesterday at the inauguration of ruling party Senator Ly Yong Phat’s sugar company – a gleaming, new facility nestled in between two hills in Kampong Speu province’s Omlaing commune – the mood just a few kilometres away bordered on desperation. Sitting ...
Residents ask PM to intervene in dispute
Villagers travelled from Poipet to Phnom Penh yesterday to seek the prime minister’s help in ending a land dispute with military police officials. About 30 villagers travelling on behalf of families from Banteay Meanchey province’s Poipet town gathered in front of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s home ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2012122760494/National/residents-ask-pm-to-intervene-in-dispute.html
Beehive Radio owner loses appeal
The Phnom Penh Court of Appeal ruled Friday that Beehive Radio owner Mam Sonando should continue serving his 20-year sentence for sedition. On October 1, the radio station owner was sentenced to 20 years in jail and fined 10 million riel in relation to a ...
UN Envoy Meets Land Dispute Villagers on First Day Mission
U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi, who arrived in Cambodia Sunday on a five-day mission, spent yesterday, International Human Rights Day, in Kompong Chhnang province with about 300 villagers from a community embroiled in a long-running land dispute with the wife of a government minister. James ...
Cambodia: Prime Minister Hun Sen Mocks Land Dispute
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen mocked a group of ethnic minority villagers who tried to petition him on Friday about their land dispute in northern Cambodia’s Rattanakiri province, after they were stopped from presenting their complaint during his visit on a land-titling campaign. Hun Sen was ...
http://www.eurasiareview.com/08122012-cambodia-prime-minister-hun-sen-mocks-land-dispute/
Sihanoukville eviction on hold
The Preah Sihanouk Provincial Court delayed the destruction of the homes and subsequent eviction of 14 families embroiled in a land dispute with a company owned by tycoon Kong Treav in Village 4 of Sihanoukville’s Commune 4, local authorities said yesterday. Though many of the families ...
Land dispute back in court
Seven representatives of 415 families entangled in an unresolved land dispute with a deputy commander of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces have received a second summons to appear in Battambang Provincial Court to clarify accusations that they had vandalized the commander’s property, “They not only ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012112059821/National-news/land-dispute-back-in-court.html
Journalist Lied Villagers Claim
More than 300 families embroiled in a land dispute with notorious, and now defunct, NGO Darpo said yesterday that they had filed complaints to the Preah Vihear Provincial Court on Wednesday accusing a Koh Santepheap reporter of disinformation and calling for his arrest and $4,000 ...