News

A deal between the ruling party and opposition in July may have ended a yearlong political deadlock, but some rights workers now worry the compromises will not be worth the long-term costs to Cambodian democracy. But Ou Virak, chairman of the board at the Cambodian ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has stirred disquiet after praising a military unit which has been heavily implicated in human rights abuses and political killings. The former Khmer Rouge commander – who has been premier for more than 25 years – gave a speech Monday thanking the troops of the notorius Brigade 70 for their ...

National Assembly President Heng Samrin has given himself the power to deny access to the assembly compound, including the offices of all lawmakers, to anyone not employed by the government and has barred all private citizens from testifying before—or sitting in on—assembly commission meetings. In ...

A union activist detained in Svay Rieng province on Sunday for delivering fliers promoting a stay-at-home strike was released after three hours, but police kept the leaflets, he said yesterday. When Kem Chamroeun, 25, of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW) brought a stack ...

Deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha has drawn the ire of the government and civil society groups after on Wednesday accusing Vietnam of orchestrating the Koh Pich bridge stampede that killed more than 350 people in 2010 as part of a plot to “eliminate the Khmer ...

For months now, Daun Penh district security forces, identifiable by their dark blue uniforms, black motorbike helmets and merciless truncheon swinging, have been unleashed on protesters, opposition and otherwise, as the all-too-willing enforcers of government-approved crackdowns. But as district forces have begun targeting more journalists during ...

With acid attacks in steep decline – not a single attack has been recorded so far this year – the only organisation working directly with acid survivors on the ground is scaling back its services by 75 per cent. Cambodian Acid Survivors Charity (CASC) is no ...

Phnom Penh residents should experience blackouts less frequently this dry season, as state-run Electricite du Cambodge (EdC) now has enough power to avoid a repeat of last year’s rolling blackouts, a senior company official said yesterday. The amount of electricity Cambodia will receive from several hydropower ...

Nearly a million hectares of land has been granted to ordinary Cambodian citizens through social land concessions (SLC) since May 2012, the government has claimed, though civil society groups have cast doubt on that high figure and questioned how many landless or evicted poor have ...

Two civil society organisations are calling on Prime Minister Hun Sen to publish three long-gestating draft laws on judicial reform to allow ample time for “genuine, inclusive and meaningful participation in the drafting process”. Hun Sen said in a speech last Wednesday that the three laws ...

The beating death of a Vietnamese-Cambodian earlier this month was the first incident in several years that some are calling a hate crime. Leaders of the Vietnamese community in Cambodia, as well as the Vietnamese Embassy, say they want the Cambodian authorities to pay more attention ...

Prak Sovannary tries to put on a brave face. She has just heard that two of 23 men arrested during a violent crackdown on garment worker protests in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, last month have unexpectedly been released on bail.Her husband, Vorn Pao, a prominent activist and union leader, is not ...

US President Barack Obama’s Southeast Asia-only trip in 2012 marked a high point in the US prioritization of the region. But there has been a drop in the presence of high-level US diplomats since then, and in his recent State of the Union speech, Obama ...

The Broadcasting Board of Governors, the US agency that oversees the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, has rejected claims by the Cambodian government that its broadcasters fabricate or manipulate news. In a statement responding to a report by the Cambodian Council of Ministers this ...

Cambodian police broke up a rally in the capital on Tuesday and briefly detained 11 activists who were calling for international assistance to secure the release of protesters arrested in a recent crackdown. The detentions came as the country’s main opposition party called off a planned ...

U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi, who is on his 10th fact-finding mission to Cambodia, met with opposition CNRP leader Sam Rainsy on Tuesday ahead of a planned meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen and other senior government officials Wednesday. Reached by telephone after the meeting ...

A coalition of international human rights groups on Wednesday issued a petition to press opposition CNRP leader Sam Rainsy and senior members of the government to publicly condemn and investigate the death threats against local rights group leader Ou Virak, following his criticism of comments ...

The Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) on Wednesday released a statement seeking to clarify an open letter it issued on December 12, which accused CNRP President Sam Rainsy of making comments that are “both derogatory and discriminatory, againstpeople of Vietnamese origin.” The original letter, signed ...

Cambodia needs to build new leaders to take over the country in the next generation, a leading rights activist says. “This means the party is ready to let their children take over, family style,” he [Cambodian Center for Human Rights head Ou Virak]. “But this younger ...

Civil society groups yesterday hit back at the government after a Ministry of Interior statement released on Wednesday warned NGOs that they would be breaking ministry protocols on political neutrality by “directly or indirectly” supporting an unnamed political party or its protests. The Cambodia National Rescue ...

In light of ongoing disputes over working conditions in the garment sector, the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR) released yesterday details on hundreds of factories it believes will offer greater transparency along the garment supply chain – from producers to buyers – and shine ...

Mark Moorstein knew little about Cambodia before he got involved in a lawsuit on behalf of land owners there. But as it’s turning out, the suit could end up affecting most every country in Asia. Moorstein is a land-use lawyer in Northern Virginia who, like many ...

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 ...

GREATER transparency along the garment supply chain, from producers to buyers, is required in order to strengthen the accountability of retailers, factories and governments in protecting the rights of workers, Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said yesterday. Speaking in Phnom ...