News
UN to grill government over Montagnards
UNHCR, the U.N.’s refugee agency, will question the government over its decision to deny asylum to the majority of Montagnards left in Cambodia, officials said, a month after the group was criticized for its role in repatriating some of the asylum-seekers to Vietnam. ...
Aun Pheap and George Wright
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/un-to-grill-government-over-montagnards-130423/
Gov’t ‘clarifies’ alleged rights abuses for IPU
A delegation from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) – a transnational organisation of lawmakers – met with lawmakers, several ministries and the UNHCR over the past two days to discuss concerns about the beating of two opposition lawmakers last October as well as the jailing of ...
Mech Dara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/govt-clarifies-alleged-rights-abuses-ipu
UN refugee agency slams Cambodia-Australia deal
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has distanced itself from Australia’s still unsigned deal to transfer refugees from the Nauru refugee detention center for resettlement in Cambodia, one of Southeast Asia’s poorest nations. First raised in February, the cash-for-refugees deal is believed to be imminent. ...
Michael Sainsbury
http://www.ucanews.com/news/un-refugee-agency-slams-cambodia-australia-deal/71943
Key Phnom Penh posting suggests Australia's asylum seeker deal with Cambodia is almost done
Australia has reportedly installed a key immigration bureaucrat in its Phnom Penh embassy as the government prepares to send up to 1000 asylum seekers in its care on Nauru to Cambodia. Greg Kelly, who formerly headed the detention operations division of the Immigration Department and managed ...
Ben Doherty and David Wroe
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/key-phnom-penh-posting-suggests-australias-asylum-seeker-deal-with-cambodia-is-almost-done-20140818-105htp.html
Abbott government beefs up staff for 'Cambodian solution'
The Abbott government has sent a senior official to Phnom Penh to take charge of a controversial scheme to resettle refugees from Australia, even before Cambodia signs an agreement to accept them. Australia has also boosted the staff of its embassy in the Cambodian capital by ...
Lindsay Murdoch
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-government-beefs-up-staff-for-cambodian-solution-20140816-104x0b.html
Cambodian deal to resettle asylum seekers imminent
A controversial deal to allow Australia to send refugees to Cambodia is imminent and could be signed as early as this week, sources have told Fairfax Media. The Australian and Cambodian governments have been negotiating for months over a deal to resettle up to 1000 refugees ...
Ben Doherty and Sarah Whyte
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/cambodian-deal-to-resettle-asylum-seekers-imminent-20140810-102ht3.html
Cambodia's PM Hun Sen confirms controversial agreement to resettle refugees from Australia
Cambodia’s strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen has confirmed his impoverished country will accept refugees from Australia in a controversial agreement condemned by human rights and refugee advocates. In his first public comments on the agreement, Mr Hun Sen said Cambodia will be “heart-felt and generous towards ...
UN critical of pending asylum seeker deal
Officials with the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Tuesday spoke out for the first time against Australia’s plans to send some of the asylum seekers trying to reach its shores to Cambodia, saying the pending deal was not a “real ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/concern-over-migration-chiefs-family-connections-57202/
Uighurs ‘arrested’ at border
A group of 14 ethnic minority Uighurs, including six children, fleeing China were arrested on Saturday in the Thai border province of Sa Keo after Cambodian smugglers deserted them on Friday, Thai media reported yesterday. The five men, three women and six children who were apprehended ...
Amelia Woodside and Cheang Sokha
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/uighurs-%E2%80%98arrested%E2%80%99-border
True refuge still elusive for refugees
It took three illegal border crossings, several bribed officials and six months in an overcrowded detention centre before Mohammed Ibrahim* finally arrived in Cambodia. Four years later, the ethnic Rohingya, a victim of violence and oppression in strife-torn Rakhine state in Myanmar’s west, is one of ...
Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/true-refuge-still-elusive-refugees
Khmer minority lack equal rights: report
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 ...
Kevin Ponniah and Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/khmer-minority-lack-equal-rights-report
Khmer Krom Seeking Refuge Remain in a State of Limbo
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 ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/khmer-krom-seeking-refuge-remain-in-a-state-of-limbo-51557/