News

The U.N. special rapporteur on the freedom of peaceful assembly and association, Maina Kiai, began a three-day unofficial visit to Cambodia on Wednesday, just one month after military police shot dead five protesters in Phnom Penh and the government imposed a ban on public gatherings. Mr. ...

Thach Ry, a 64-year-old Khmer Krom man, fled Vietnam in 2008 after authorities there tried to arrest him for protesting the government’s treatment of his community. Arriving in Cambodia with his wife and daughter, authorities here tried to arrest him, too, he said, so like many ...

Khmer Krom people fleeing persecution in Vietnam and denied refuge in Thailand are being sent to Cambodia, where the government does not ensure that their rights are protected, the Minority Rights Organization (MIRO) has said in a new report. The report—“Abandoned People Khmer Krom Seeking Refuge ...

Mak Sambath, deputy chairman of the government’s Human Rights Committee, came under fire Monday from activists who accused him of lying to the U.N. in Geneva regarding land issues and the displacement of affected people. The criticism of Mr. Sambath’s report to the U.N.’s Human Rights ...

The U.N.’s General Assembly released its latest round of recommendations to improve the human rights situation in Cambodia on Thursday following a review held last week in Geneva. The statements made by delegations from 76 countries during the review urged Cambodia to fulfill its promise to ...

A call for the Cambodian government to lift its controversial ban on public assembly is among 34 such recommendations it has chosen to defer in the wake of last week’s second Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of its human rights situation. The UN on Saturday released a ...

Cambodia is preparing three long-awaited laws aimed at restoring its widely criticized judicial system. However, two of the three draft laws obtained by VOA Khmer still need a lot more improvement, according to legal experts. The laws focus on codifying court jurisdiction, laying out guidelines for ...

A week after they began their campaign, activists and rights groups handed out the last of their petitions to embassies across Phnom Penh on Wednesday, hoping to solicit the help of foreign governments in securing the release of 23 men arrested earlier this month at ...

Though Cambodia had four years to implement 91 recommendations on how to improve its human rights record, U.N. member states still had to push for action in a number of key areas during its second Universal Periodic Review hearing in Geneva on Tuesday. In a speech ...

Ahead of today’s hearing on Cambodia’s record at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, opposition figures and analysts said the ruling Cambodian People’s Party has reverted to familiar tactics of post-election suppression. Analysts yesterday said that the breaking up of Cambodia National Rescue Party-led protests ...

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy left for Europe yesterday evening to attend a UN Human Rights Council review on Cambodia in Geneva and to lobby European Union officials to take a stronger stance against the government, he said before departure. Rainsy plans on attending the Universal Periodic ...

The opposition may be readying a formal request that the United Nations and King Norodom Sihamoni play a role in future negotiations between the Cambodia National Rescue Party and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. On a trip to Takeo province on Saturday, CNRP deputy president Kem ...

UN rights envoy Surya Subedi wrapped up his six-day fact-finding mission to Cambodia yesterday by calling for a thorough investigation into security forces’ role in the deadly crackdown on garment workers early this month. He also offered to act as a mediator between the ruling Cambodian ...

In a meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen and 10 of the government’s highest-ranking officials in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi called for the perpetrators of recent state-sanctioned killings to be held accountable for their actions. Mr. Subedi spent three-and-a-half hours ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday that the Southeast Asian nation has no ambition to develop a nuclear power plant, but wants to use nuclear technologies in agriculture, health, and animal breeds. The prime minister made the remarks during a meeting with Yukiya Amano, director ...

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 ...

Defying a new ban on public gatherings, more than 50 activists and monks gathered outside the local U.N. human rights office Monday morning to demand the immediate release of 23 men who were arrested earlier this month during violent clashes between police and garment workers. The ...

The U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia, Surya Subedi, who began his 10th fact-finding mission to Cambodia on Sunday, has been asked to investigate issues faced by ethnic Khmer Krom people after five monks were arrested for participating in garment worker protests earlier this month. In ...

The U.N. special envoy for human rights in Cambodia on Monday met with about 100 activists in the capital Phnom Penh who sought his help to gain the release of nearly two dozen people arrested during recent violent government crackdowns on striking factory workers. Envoy Surya ...

United Nations envoy is expected to arrived in Cambodia today, a week after the deadly crackdown by government forces against protesting workers on Veng Sreng street, which left five people dead. This is the first visit of Surya P. Subedi, UN Special Rapporteur on human ...

The UN human rights agency urged Cambodia to launch an investigation into the “disproportionate” use of force by security forces last week against garment factory workers striking over pay. Military police opened fire on workers protesting outside a factory in Phnom Penh on January 3 and ...

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), along with local rights groups Licadho and Adhoc, denounced the Friday shooting of protesting garment workers by police in a joint statement released in Paris on Monday. “The killing of demonstrators by government authorities is totally unacceptable. The government ...

Chinese military trainers on Wednesday successfully ended the 2nd mine clearance course for 52 Cambodian peacekeeping forces after a six-week intensive training. The course, instructed by a team of 12 Chinese military experts, had been conducted at the Institute for Peacekeeping Forces, Mine and Explosive Remnants ...

The U.N. and local human rights groups have condemned the government’s violent eviction of CNRP supporters from Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park on Saturday, as well as its indefinite ban on public protests in the city. On Saturday, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court also summonsed opposition leaders ...