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Activist monk Loun Savath yesterday decried an “agreement” he thumbprinted in the presence of Supreme Patriarch Nun Nget on Thursday, claiming he was forced to comply under duress. Speaking from a safe place yesterday, the “multimedia monk” said a group, including the municipal chief monk and ...

Loun Savath, a monk and rights activist who was detained by plain clothes security officials Thursday, was released that night, after he agreed to sign a letter vowing to stop leading and participating in protests. However, he has promised he will not halt his activism. Loun ...

The number of protests over land disputes increased in 2011 as forced resettlement, restrictions on freedom of assembly and the harassment of peaceful protesters continued to tarnish Cambodia’s human rights record, Amnesty International said in its annual report released yesterday. Noting the huge impact of economic ...

The protectionist bent of conservation groups and the development agenda of the government can come together in Cambodia to create a green economy. That is the message of a new book Conservation International (C.I.) launched yesterday in Phnom Penh, outlining practical options for saving the environment ...

About 3,000 garment workers from two factories that supply clothes to international brands Levi Strauss, H&M and Gap continued protesting for higher wages yesterday in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district, before marching to the Ministry of Social Affairs. Upon arriving at the ministry, workers employed by the ...

About 4,000 workers from two garment factories protested in Phnom Penh  yesterday for better working conditions – but bosses told them their 7.5 hour working days and free meals meant they had it pretty good. The workers from SL Garment Processing (Cambodia)’s SL1 and SL2 factories ...

The U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia, Surya Subedi, was in Ratanakkiri province yesterday as part of his weeklong visit to the country to investigate the impact land concessions have on local communities. Some rights groups have singled out land concessions as the premier human rights ...

About 100 tuk-tuk drivers, motorcycle taxi drivers, vendors and other informal transportation workers protested against the high price of gasoline yesterday at the National Assembly, claiming the high petrol prices are cutting into their small profits. Vorn Pao, president of the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy ...

About 150 villagers embroiled in a long-running land dispute with CPP Senator and tycoon Ly Yong Phat protested peacefully outside the Kompong Speu Provincial Court yesterday as five villagers were questioned over accusations that they are illegally occupying the senator’s land. The villagers, from Thpong district’s ...

A total of 36 protests involving economic land concessions ended with violent intervention from armed authorities last year, according to data released this week by local rights group Adhoc. More than a fifth of the cases involved the long-simmering Boeng Kak lake evictions, in which ...

Police detained two unionists and broke up a protest in Siem Reap province yesterday where workers demanded the owners of the Angkor Village Hotel and Resort respect a court decision ordering them to reinstate 67 workers. On October 26, Siem Reap Municipal Court ruled that the ...

As hundreds of villagers belonging to the Prey Long People’s Network began a week-long campaign to save Prey Long forest, Kompong Thom province military police intervened Sunday and prevented a group of about 80 villagers from joining the campaign, an environmental activist said yesterday. Chut Wutty, ...

They’ve wept, they’ve yelled and they’ve prayed as they watched excavators tear down their homes, so perhaps it’s understandable that the residents of Boeung Kak lake are now turning to song. “Mom goes to protest, the children cry and sleep on the ground,” go the lyrics ...

Representatives of 32 families living in the capital’s Chamkarmon district staged a protest yesterday in Tonle Bassac commune, pleading with Prime Minister Hun Sen to intervene on their behalf against the Thai Bun Roong company, which they say is forcing them to sell their land ...

Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has summoned for questioning two rights group activists and a journalist over charges that they incited ethnic minority villagers in Lumphat district to violence in 2009, a court official said yesterday. The case against the three men – Adhoc provincial coordinator Pen ...

More than 300 villagers from Kampong Cham province’s Chamkar Leu, Memot, and Stung Trang districts gathered in Phnom Penh on Friday to protest against a plan to relocate them from their land in order to make way for rubber plantations. The villagers contend they have ...

NGO Forum confirmed yesterday it had received a “warning letter” from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs over its advocacy on behalf of communities affected by a railway rehabilitation project funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and AusAID. The warning to the umbrella group of 88 ...

International NGO Bridges Across Borders and umbrella group NGO Forum met yesterday morning with officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who accused both of making “false” and “unfair” claims to the Asian Development Bank about the death of two children relocated by a railway ...

More than one hundred villagers dressed as the forest people from the hit film “Avatar” protested in the Cambodian capital Thursday against the destruction of the country’s Prey Lang forestThey say the forest, which is a source of livelihood for some 200,000 mainly indigenous people, ...

Thousands of Boeung Kak lake residents who have been fighting a protracted battle with Phnom Penh and a development company have seen their fortunes reversed and have been granted a small plot of land on which to resettle. Prime Minister Hun Sen signed a subdecree ...

For the first time since Phnom Penh municipality slated some 4,000 mostly poor families for forced eviction in 2007 to make way for a CPP senator’s controversial real estate project, City Hall yesterday promised them what they have always wanted most: titles to their land. ...

In Svay Rieng province villagers are in their fourth day of protests after authorities refused to meet with them to discuss a land concession that Metapheap Company has received in order to open a rubber plantation. The company was granted a 1,230 hectare land concession ...

June Textiles Factory has agreed to compensate more than 4,000 workers who have lost their jobs when the factory burned down after months of protests and arbitration hearings. The announcement came from the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia that the workers would be receiving the ...

60 villagers in Svay Rieng province demonstrated to prevent the Mittapheap Rubber Company from moving its machinery into the area. The company has plans to clear 500 hectares of land in what the villagers claim is their protected community forest. Adhoc is investigating the claims ...