News

China’s demand for natural resources is being felt in a big way in Cambodia. Illegal logging and economic land concessions are threatening Cambodia’s dwindling forests, which now echo the sound of chainsaws. Prey Lang forest — an eight-hour journey north and east of the capital, Phnom Penh ...

The convicted ringleader of a so-called secessionist movement in May in Kratie province, who is currently in self-imposed exile to avoid a 30-year prison sentence, has said that he will soon return to Cambodia to organize a large-scale demonstration against the government. Bun Ratha—who was sentenced ...

A lack of legal protections, insufficient commitment from the Malaysian government and an overworked, understaffed embassy are among the major obstacles to lifting the maid ban, according to an internal government report obtained yesterday. Penned by the Ministry of Interior, the 12-page brief details a ...

About 300 workers continued protesting at the Master and Frank garment factory yesterday, rejecting a Kandal Provincial Court injunction ordering them back to work within 48 hours. After the company promised to consider workers’ demands that it reinstate fired union members, workers cancelled their plans to ...

Four garment workers, three of them female, were injured yesterday morning when company and police officials clashed with protesters, union representatives said yesterday. During the demonstrations for the reinstatement of fired workers and back pay, authorities beat two workers unconscious at a protest in front of ...

More than 100 families face the loss of their rice fields over a social land concession that was granted to the families of military veterans in Stung Treng province, local authorities and villagers said yesterday. Seven families, who depend on their rice and mango harvest in ...

Widely different interpretations of the government’s land policy were voiced at a conference on Land Security and Housing Rights on Thursday in Phnom Penh, with civil servants defending mass relocations, while rural evictees spoke of being forced into poverty due to loss of their land. ...

The Government of Cambodia on Friday passed a draft law on fire prevention in order to contribute to maintaining security, social safety, public order, and life and property protection, according to a media statement released after the weekly Cabinet meeting. In the meeting, Hun Sen ...

The court system is still “chronically underfunded” and laws on its management are almost 20 years overdue, the U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi said yesterday. One year ago, during his sixth mission to Cambodia, Mr. Subedi described reform in the courts as moving at a ...

Five people were arrested early Sunday morning for allegedly stealing more than 8,000 articles of clothing from shipping container on its way to Phnom Penh for export to the U.S., police said. The five suspects are accused of removing the garments from the cargo container as ...

Forestry police let a vehicle with a half cubic meter of rosewood go Wednesday after border soldiers stopped it in Ou Svay commune in Tropang Prosat district. The vehicle belonged to Rath Sambo, a police officer at the Ministry of Interior who fled the scene, sources ...

A migrant worker Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is back in the spotlight after Malaysia yesterday agreed to send a delegation of senior government officials to meet with their Cambodian counterparts tomorrow and Thursday. MoU talks are of mounting importance in the face of escalating evidence of ...

Police in Banteay Meanchey province detained 298 people for trying to illegally cross the border to Thailand last week in Thma Puok district’s Kork Romiet commune, police said yesterday. During questioning, all 298 detainees admitted that they were trying to cross the border in order to ...

The abuse of Cambodian maids overseas has become one of the most documented human rights violation here. But as the Government, media, NGOs and aid agencies focus their energies on domestic laborer living abroad, advocates have begun to urge that closer attention be paid to ...

Government spending next year will total more than $3 billion, a 16.2 percent increase from the $2.6 billion set aside for 2012, according to a draft of the national budget obtained Friday. The budget states that the government will allocate some $400 million, or 13.32 ...

Activist groups are planning to hold two separate forums this week in Phnom Penh to call attention to human rights issues and other problems in Asean countries as a meeting of regional and world leaders begin in the city. The assembly will meet ahead of ...

The National Election Committee (NEC) broke ground yesterday on a $12-million tower being funded by the casino company NagaCorp that is set to take more than two years to complete and has drawn concern from election groups. At a ceremony that took place on National Assembly ...

Disgraced former Lieutenant General Doeun Sovann appeared in court on Nov. 5, 2012. to answer charges for attempting to rope in volunteers from Prime Minister Hun Sen’s national land-titling scheme, monitoring measurment of a disputed plot he allegedly purchased. Phnom Penh Municipal Court investigating Judge Ly ...

At the ceremony yesterday making the official start of the National Election Committee’s new mandate, NEC chairman Im Suosdey criticized the U.N. human rights envoy to Cambodia for taking an exceedingly harsh view of the country’s much derided electoral system. In a July report to the ...

The only man convicted in relation to a murder case that made global headlines, the killing of environmentalist Chut Wutty and military police officer, In Rattana, walked free on Friday, less than two weeks after his sentencing, rights group Licadho said. Ran Boroth, who was ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday charged a Ministry of Interior police general with intimidation and unlawful interference in the discharge of a public function for allegedly attempting to use Prime Minister Hun Sen’s student volunteer program to settle a personal land dispute. Mr. ...

Kompong Thom provincial officials will stop illegal gold mining in seven locations in Sandan district’s Meanrith commune come November, provincial and district officials said. About 100 residents of Meanrith have been illegally digging for gold in the district for several years, provincial deputy governor King Vimean ...

Police targeting of sex workers for arrest has made them vulnerable to contracting or spreading HIV, according to a U.N. report released yesterday. The U.N. report, Sex Work and Law in Asia and the Pacific-Laws, HIV and human rights in the context of sex work, states that ...

Svay Rieng Provincial Court officials are investigating an employee of the Ministry of Interior who is accused of fraudulently selling his land to someone and not honouring the deal. Ros Sithan, a logistics department officer at the ministry, was arrested on the evening of September 28, ...