News
In Poipet, Motorcycle Taxi Drivers Protest Police Abuse
More than 35 motorcycle taxi drivers protested in front of military police headquarters in Poipet City yesterday, calling for military police to protect them from an immigration police officer who has allegedly been shocking them with an electric baton, police and protesters said. Proem Sareom, one of the drivers protesting ...
Police Search Home of Luxury Wood Trader in Kratie
The Kratie Provincial Court yesterday issued a search warrant for the home of Chum Vuthy, a man who allegedly trades in luxury wood, in Kratie City, provincial police said. Mr. Vuthy had been transporting a load of illegal lumber from Stung Treng City to Vietnam and ...
Five People Released in Kratie Insurrection Case
The Kratie Provincial Court has released on bail five of the eight people charged after a military-style operation by security forces on a small village alleged to be the home of a secessionist movement, a court official said yesterday. On May 16, a 14-year-old girl was ...
Boeung Kak royal petition stymied
Boeung Kak demonstrators left the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh disappointed yesterday after their petition calling for the release of 15 Boeung Kak lake residents locked in Prey Sar prison was not accepted. About 50 villagers, flanked by supporters, marched to the palace from the National ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012060656620/National-news/b-kak-royal-petition-stymied.html
‘Outsiders’ denied right to vote
Just under three weeks ago, residents in Pro Ma village were running for their lives as security forces opened fire on them with automatic weapons, killing a 14-year-old girl. About 1,000 police, military police and soldiers stormed their village, fired at them indiscriminately, evicted hundreds of ...
City Hall Installs More Cameras To Monitor Congestion
Phnom Penh City Hall has installed five new surveillance cameras at major intersections around the city in order to help traffic police monitor increasingly congested roads, police and an official at an Internet service provider (ISP) said this week. Paul Blanche-Horgan, CEO of ISP Ezecom—the firm which set up the ...
Protest Becomes Secession When Liberties Are Taken With Words
This month’s eviction of villagers in Kratie province that resulted in the death of a 14-year-old girl was one of many such violent incidents over land that have erupted in Cambodia in recent years. But what set the May 16 violence apart was a word: ...
Protesters Call For Release of Boeng Kak 15
About 100 residents from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community rallied in front of the National Assembly yesterday to demand the release of 13 women sentenced to jail last week and two others now in pretrial detention for opposing evictions resulting from a real estate project ...
Protesters Forgo Roadblock, Distribute Petitions
Villagers in Koh Kong province involved in a long-running land dispute with two sugar cane plantations linked to CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat handed out petitions to passing motorists along National Road 48 demanding their land back. It was a change of pace for the villagers, ...
Activist monk detained at Wat Botum
Senor members of the monastic community yesterday detained Buddhist monk Loun Savath, an award-winning human rights activist, after he took photos of protesting Boeung Kak lake villagers outside Phnom Penh municipal court. Monks, police and unidentified men in plain clothes violently forced Loun Savath into a ...
Mondulkiri village’s residents say they’d rather die than run
A combined force of police, soldiers and military police last night set a deadline of 8am this morning for villagers in Mondulkiri province’s tiny Rayum commune to leave their homes or face forcible eviction. Authorities, who have surrounded the village for a week, say the villagers’ ...
Clash erupts at SL factory
Security guards clashed yesterday with workers from two SL Garment factories that supply Levi’s, Gap and H&M, as the number of employees protesting exceeded 5,500 – or more than 90 per cent of the staff. Protester Kim Voeun, 32, said security guards, in the presence of ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012052456366/National-news/clash-erupts-at-sl-factory.html
Police destroy 50 homes in Mondulkiri
With a looming deadline to move still two days away, police yesterday stormed tiny Rayum commune in Mondulkiri province, dismantling and burning at least 50 homes belonging to villagers embroiled in a land dispute with a Vietnamese rubber company. Seng Channy, a villager representative who escaped ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012052456373/National-news/villagers-time-runs-out.html
Police Begin Dismantling Mondolkiri Village Involved in Dispute
As the eviction deadline looms for residents of a Mondolkiri village embroiled in a land dispute with a Vietnamese-owned rubber plantation, police have begun to dismantle vacant homes in the village, an official and a villager said yesterday. Sin Seng, 43, a resident of the remote ...
Boeung Kak 13 held without charge
Thirteen women hauled into police vehicles during a demonstration at Boeung Kak lake on Tuesday were being held without charge at Phnom Penh police headquarters last night. About 70 Boeung Kak villagers rallied outside Phnom Penh municipal court yesterday in support of the arrested women, who ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012052456371/National-news/b-kak-13-held-without-charge.html
Police Surround Homes in Search of Alleged Secessionists
Dozens of police in search of two Kratie province “secessionist ringleaders” surrounded the homes of two of their relatives in Kompong Cham province for nearly 12 hours yesterday while threatening those inside, a relative of the two men said. The alleged secessionist movement has been used ...
Arrests greet symbolic Boeung Kak gesture
Thirteen Boeung Kak women, including a 67-year-old, were arrested and forced into police vans and trucks yesterday as about 200 Phnom Penh municipal police and security officers cracked down on a 100-strong demonstration at the site. The group, which included Boeung Kak lake residents, evictees and ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012052356334/National-news/bringing-down-the-house.html
Police Buildup Continues as Families Face Eviction in Mondolkiri
An additional 200 armed police officers have moved into a village in Mondolkiri province where families locked in a land dispute with a Vietnamese-owned rubber plantation have been given until Friday to clear out, police and villagers said yesterday. Police had already moved about 100 officers ...
Mondulkiri villagers decry torching of homes by police
More than 60 families in Mondulkiri province’s Roveak village in Rayum commune are worried about their safety and that of their housing after authorities deployed forces to surround their village on Sunday following eviction orders from the government. Bun Sokchea, 49, said that on Saturday, Koh ...
Security forces strip, handcuff women in Kratie amid eviction
Villagers detained during a bloody crackdown in Kratie province last week in which a 14-year-old was shot dead have accused security forces of brutal acts of cruelty, including forcing pregnant women to stand naked in the sun for hours. The villagers from Pro Ma village in ...
Accused secessionist in Kratie to meet with the press
The man police allege was behind a so-called secession plan in Kratie province – an accusation used to justify a crackdown in which a teenager was killed last week – plans to hold a press conference to defend himself in the next two days, his ...
Mondolkiri Villagers Fear Imminent Eviction
In a land dispute with overtones of last week’s deadly eviction in Kratie province, villagers in Mondolkiri province yesterday said dozens of police were surrounding their houses and threatening to force them out of a private land concession. Sen Sophon, one of about 200 families in ...
Police, villagers clash over CPP land dispute
Villagers and police clashed Sunday after excavators moved in to prepare work on a disputed plot where authorities will build a CPP commune office in Stung Treng City’s Preah Bat commune, officials said yesterday. Hou Sam Ol, provincial monitor for local rights group Adhoc, said Stung ...
Cops ejected from Boeung Kak press event
Boeung Kak lake residents yesterday accused commune police of not fulfilling their duty of keeping them safe, forcibly expelling a number of officers from a press conference called to highlight the problem. ...