News

Local police in Ratanakkiri province’s Veun Sai district yesterday tried to shut down a community meeting in which villagers were being educated about land rights, because it was being held without permission, rights workers said. According to Pen Bonnar, provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc, two ...

A coalition of about 30 soldiers, police, forestry officials and military police armed with chainsaws razed some 40 houses belonging to villagers in Pursat province’s Santre commune yesterday, claiming the villagers were illegally living in a state forest, villagers and officials said. According to resident Chin ...

More than six years after a sugar company bulldozed their farms in Koh Kong province, some 200 families who have held out ever since, arguing the action was illegal, will finally get their day in court on Thursday. 100 villagers will join them at the ...

Villagers locked in a land dispute in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district no longer pose a secessionist threat, and those remaining in the contested area will receive new plots of land on which to live, the district governor said yesterday. District governor Chhe Chhiv said that ...

Ministry of Interior officials announced yesterday that three more villagers accused of involvement in a “secessionist plot” in Kratie province turned themselves in and confessed their guilt on Saturday, taking advantage of the prime minister’s offer of immunity for those who agree to act as ...

Two more people in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district have been arrested in conjunction with what local authorities are calling a secessionist plot, while provincial authorities threatened to demolish more homes if residents do not leave a disputed area, officials said yesterday. Deputy provincial court prosecutor ...

The Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court questioned four villagers among 12 summoned for questioning over a land dispute in Samakki Meanchey district, which has pitted some 80 local families against the owner of a private company they accuse of taking their land. While the dispute stems from alleged land grabbing, ...

Police in Battambang arrested six villagers embroiled in a land dispute with a local businessman on Wednesday after 10 other villagers accused them of defrauding families in the area, deputy provincial governor Uy Ry said yesterday. However, villagers and rights workers in Kors Kralor district said ...

More than 100 villagers protested in front of Banan district hall in Battambang province yesterday, demanding the release of six villagers who were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly accepting money to illegally divide state land. The six suspects have been accused of advertising land and then ...

Villagers from Svay Rieng province’s Krasaing commune have vowed to continue their protests to preserve a patch of community forest earmarked for clearing, despite receiving an official warning yesterday. Residents said it would affect over 2,700 people. ...

Two more people in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district were arrested Tuesday in connection with what local authorities are calling a secessionist plot, a forestry official said yesterday. Veal Veng district forestry chief Thorn Bunthet said that Kuy Van, 55, and Leng Chhoeuk, 50, were arrested ...

The homes of nearly 200 families living in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district were demolished yesterday and Monday after officials accused the residents of being involved in a secessionist plot, local officials and villagers said. District governor Chhe Chhiv said that authorities had demolished 191 homes ...

Another alleged “secessionist” involved in a land dispute was arrested yesterday in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district, where villagers said authorities continued a prolonged forced eviction that has led to the destruction of some 500 homes. Three other men accused of attempting to create an autonomous ...

The Laos government will continue to allow what it has dubbed “preparatory work” on the controversial Xayaburi dam, including the resettlement of villagers, despite promising to suspend the project at last week’s ASEAN Regional Forum, according to a media report in Laos. ...

Koh Thom district, Kandal province – On a quiet stretch of road in this sleepy border town, there are some telltale signs of an unusual trade: A trail of discarded dead rats, some upturned with their paws stiff in the air, others covered with a ...

Touch Seouly, the head of an NGO involved in a years-long land dispute that has sparked violent and sometimes fatal clashes across several provinces in the south, was arrested on Friday after villagers in Kampot province lodged a new round of complaints with authorities. Kampot provincial ...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday postponed the first hearing in a long-running land dispute between dozens of villagers from Chikor Leu commune and sugar companies believed to be partly owned by ruling-party senator Ly Yong Phat. ...

A second police official in Ratanakkiri province has been suspended on suspicion that he demanded money from villagers so that their names could be included on a list of people eligible for land titles as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s new titling program, police ...

A local police official in Ratanakkiri province has been suspended for demanding money from villagers before adding their names to a list of people eligible for Prime Minister Hun Sen’s new land-titling program, police and villagers said yesterday. A total of 1,100 student volunteers are being ...

More than 200 villagers in Preah Vihear town thumb-printed a joint complaint to rights group Adhoc over the weekend asking them to appeal to provincial authorities to intervene after their private electricity company raised its prices by more than 1,000 riel per kilowatt hour, NGO ...

Adorned in new military uniforms, about 400 more young volunteers who have been enlisted into Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ambitious national land-titling scheme departed from Diamond Island yesterday armed with measuring tapes, computers and GPS units. The budding surveyors are the latest group of some 2,000 ...

After years of futile protests demanding their land back, villagers forcibly evicted by sugarcane plantations connected to CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat launched a boycott campaign yesterday targeting the international firms that sell his sugar. Thousands of families accuse the senator’s plantations of forcing them off ...

More than 170 villagers in Banteay Meanchey province locked in a land dispute with a local company protested yesterday in front of the provincial hall, seeking land titles in compliance with Prime Minister Hun Sen’s recent titling project. The families say they had been granted a ...

Tek Nim is well versed in dealing with adversity. In year nine, she dropped out of school, began working on the family farm and finally became resigned to the belief that her brightest prospect was to leave Omlaing commune, in Kampong Speu province’s Thpong district, ...