News

The August report from Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT) was released yesterday and revealed that social media rights for women in six poor communities in Phnom Penh were restricted by threats and intimidation from local authorities after they shared information on the challenges they face in ...

In August, two local Cambodian organizations, Licadho and Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT) published Collateral Damage: Land Loss and Abuses in Cambodia’s Microfinance Sector, a report about the dangerous growth of the country’s microfinance sector. It spotlighted an issue that researchers have been warning about for years. A report ...

The government yesterday ordered two NGOs to retract a critical report on the negative impacts of microloans after summoning their representatives for a meeting to defend their research. The report, published last month by Licadho and Sahmakum Teang Tnaut, featured seven case studies of abuse chosen ...

Officials of NGOs Licadho and Sahmakum Teang Tnaut will attend a closed-door meeting at the Council of Ministers on Wednesday to explain the findings of their recent report claiming that increasing levels of debt at microfinance institutions (MFIs) has resulted in human rights violations. ...

A report from local human rights NGOs Licadho and Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT) claimed that the increasing levels of debt caused by taking loans from microfinance institutions (MFIs) is forcing rural families to sell off land. The study also claimed that the sharp rise in debt ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Department of Environment on Thursday warned it would start imposing fines on residents who fail to dispose of rubbish properly after a campaign to raise public awareness about the law and the environment ends. ...

The municipal Department of Public Works and Transport said on Thursday that it planned to remove tonnes of waste disorderly disposed of in the capital’s sewage canal next week. The move followed widespread criticism of mass floating rubbish and the municipal authority’s alleged inaction. ...

A senior Defence Ministry official said yesterday that the United States had provided financial assistance to its own organisations and to NGOs to carry out anti-Cambodian government activities. ...

Civil society organizations yesterday repeated calls for land disputes to be resolved quickly, peacefully and without authorities using police and the courts to put pressure on communities. Speaking at an event celebrating poor urban communities at the American Intercon School yesterday, more than 200 people, including ...

Eight human rights officers and activists clad in black were arrested on Monday during “Black Monday” protests in Phnom Penh, the first in a campaign to free four fellow rights workers and an election official who were jailed late last month on charges widely believed ...

A new mobile phone application launched yesterday aims to collect data on flooding, blackouts, traffic jams and other problems that plague Phnom Penh, then map its findings for use by citizens and City Hall.   ...

fter rights group Licadho released a statement Thursday saying that more than 10,000 Cambodian families were newly affected last year by land disputes in the 13 provinces where it has monitors—a three-fold increase from 2013—a government spokesman on Friday slammed the NGO’s report as “baseless ...

Hundreds of people gathered yesterday morning in front of Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison to demand the release of 17 incarcerated activists, monks and opposition members. The detainees include 10 land activists, three monks and four members of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party. Fifteen of ...

When Hay Bunny left her home in Prey Veng province some five years ago to find a job in Phnom Penh, she was not expecting to wind up living in a small tin shack hemmed in by dozens of nearly identical dwellings on a single ...

Civil society groups have condemned the arrest, detention and conviction of seven Boeung Kok land activists, following their protests earlier this week outside Phnom Penh City Hall. Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday charged them with the violation of traffic law by blocking a public ...

The Phnom Penh municipal government issued a warning to those operating unlicensed sand quarries after a military helicopter plunged into one killing four people on Monday, but some questioned City Hall’s motives and commitment. The statement, dated Tuesday and signed by Governor Pa Socheatvong, came a ...

Local authorities met with Boeung Kak community members yesterday to register villagers left out of the oft-criticised resettlement scheme as a first step to providing them with titles and onsite housing. More than 10 officials including police, commune and village chief, as well as representatives of ...

Phnom Penh families being pushed to the city’s outskirts to make way for a $142.6 million railway renovation project funded by Australia and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are falling into debt and finding it harder to earn money and access healthcare according to a ...

The Boeung Kak community and a land rights NGO yesterday released a proposed demarcation plan they say could solve the long-standing land dispute. In a map presented yesterday, villagers said they had agreed on a land division that would make room for 70 families locked out ...

The Cambodian Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a jailed land rights activist’s appeal to be released on bail, drawing criticism from rights groups who said the whole case smacked of political interference and should be thrown out. “I am having heart, respiratory, and stomach ...

The Asian Development Bank has refused to release a critical study on the impacts its $141.6 million railway project is having on thousands of Cambodian families because disclosure of the report could hurt its relationship with the government, an ADB spokeswoman said. Raising concerns about the ...

The Finance Ministry has sent a letter to well-known businesswoman Choeung Sopheap thanking her for paying her taxes on the highly controversial filling in of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak lake, and holding her firm up as an example of corporate professionalism. Though Shukaku Inc., which is ...

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 ...

Human rights groups in Cambodia fear a new south-east Asian declaration of human rights could conversely offer the government in Phnom Penh a figleaf to clamp down on dissent. Cambodia signed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) human rights declaration on Sunday, two days ...