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Culture Ministry bans film on forest activist Chut Wutty
The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts has banned a screening of a documentary film about murdered environmentalist Chut Wutty and threatened “strong action” against the venue if films continue to be shown without first being cleared by the government. Set to be screened on April 20 at Phnom Penh’s Meta House Café, Fran Lambrick’s I Am Chut Wutty chronicles the fight against deforestation in Cambodia through the life of Wutty, who in 2012 was shot and killed while documenting logging activities in Koh Kong province.
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With Jailing, Flagrant Abuse of Constitution
Before leaving the country last month, the U.N.’s special rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia, Rhona Smith, decried what she said was the prevalence of cases where there was a “difference between what the laws say and then the implementation.” Nowhere has this difference been more conspicuous since she departed than in the government’s sweeping reinterpretation of the article in the Constitution that prohibits a lawmaker’s arrest without consent from two-thirds of the National Assembly.
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Victims of Beach Eviction Plan Petition for Capital
Damnak Sdech, Ochheuteal Beach and Otres Beach vendors, whose stalls were or will be razed as part of the government’s plans to reshape the Kingdom’s oceanfront, will travel to the capital to submit a petition asking for help from the Ministry of Land Management, according to the vendors representative. Ek Vithean, whose runs multiple stalls on Otres Beach worth tens of thousands of dollars, voiced his concerns about his eviction notice.
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Torture reform uncertain
Following last week’s US government report calling attention to torture in Cambodia’s prisons and Interior Minister Sar Kheng’s announcement the week before that the government committee tasked with torture prevention would be reformed, the body’s vice president said yesterday that he was unaware of what that might entail. The US’s annual human rights report, published on Wednesday, alleges that “beatings and other forms of physical mistreatment of police detainees and prison inmates continued during the year”.
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Opposition Leader Charged, Remanded Over Vietnam Maps
Opposition lawmaker Um Sam An has been formally remanded in Prey Sar prison after accusing the government of using fake maps in border negotiations with Vietnam and of selling land to Cambodia’s neighbor. The government has been accused by critics of using various maps to give land to Vietnam, where Prime Minister Hun Sen sheltered after leaving the Khmer Rouge and fleeing in 1977, returning when the Vietnamese overthrew the Khmer Rouge in 1979.
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Case Opened Into Claims of Assault by Manet’s Guard
Police in Long Beach, California, said on Saturday that they had opened an investigation into the alleged assault of an American man by a bodyguard of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s son Hun Manet. Yet Lieutenant General Manet, in an interview on the same day, said that he believed the injured man, Paul Hayes, had “somehow tripped and fell” and that his bodyguards would have been arrested had he been assaulted.
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Former SRP president slams arrest of Um Sam An
As the opposition marked the 41st anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge, one of its senior officials yesterday lashed out at the imprisonment of a CNRP lawmaker for criticising the government’s handling of the Vietnamese border issue. Despite his immunity as a lawmaker, Um Sam An, an American and Cambodian dual citizen, was arrested on April 10 and charged on Tuesday.
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US Report Critical of Government’s Treatment of Opposition
The U.S. State Department’s annual Human Rights Report, released on Wednesday, highlights poor treatment of Cambodia’s political opposition in 2015, and raises concerns about the judiciary’s “broad interpretation” of the crime of incitement.
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Senate Passes Union Law While Opposition Abstains
The rubber-stamp Senate on Tuesday approved the controversial Trade Union Law with unanimous support from the ruling CPP and abstentions from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP).
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Officer Detained, Probed Over Death Threat Against Journalist
Pailin provincial police say they are investigating allegations that a district warren officer shot up a house and threatened to kill a journalist who planned to write about it.
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Immunity No Use for Jailed Lawmaker, Hun Sen Says
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday defended the arrest on Monday of CNRP lawmaker Um Sam An over months-old Facebook posts, arguing that he was not protected by parliamentary immunity because he was technically caught in the act of a crime.
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Kingdom's judiciary perceived as most corrupt: UNDP
The judiciary is perceived as the most corrupt government institution in the Kingdom, according to a United Nations Development Programme global survey of corruption in the judiciary released on Friday. A Transparent and Accountable Judiciary to Deliver Justice for All says that, globally, the police are viewed as the most corrupt institution, but not in Cambodia, the report found.
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General to be Questioned Over Defamatory Remarks
A two-star general in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) will be questioned by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court today for allegedly making defamatory remarks about a superior officer’s wife relating to land seizures in Siem Reap province, according to court officials. Court Clerk Sieng Heng said Major General Keo Meas was sued by Chea Kongkea, the wife of four-star general and Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of National Defense Dom Hak, for “defamatory information” under article 305 of the penal code. She filed a complaint with the court on March 28.
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For CNRP, Little to Show for Touted Graft Body
The government’s Anti-Corruption Unit has been swamped of late. In recent weeks, it has launched an investigation into deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha’s finances, jailed a Foreign Affairs Ministry bureau chief and imprisoned the ambassador to South Korea. The same cannot be said of the National Assembly’s opposition-led anti-corruption commission, which has mostly been silent since it was created in mid-2014 and touted as one of the CNRP’s major victories in a political deal it struck with the ruling party.
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Rainsy tells migrants to prep for 2018 vote
Self-exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy on Saturday appealed to Cambodia’s hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to return home in time to register to vote, reiterating hopes for a peaceful transition of power after elections in 2018. “I appeal to the one million Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand to do their best – with the help of CNRP Members of Parliament and local officials if need be – to get registered as voters and to get their Cambodian national ID cards in time in order to be able to cast their ballots at the crucial 2017 and 2018 elections,” Rainsy wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday.
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Little promise in union law debate, says SRP senator
Following the National Assembly’s passage of the draft trade union law last week, the Senate is set to take up the law today, with the permanent committee scheduled to discuss it followed by a vote on Tuesday, said the Senate’s secretary-general Oum Sarith. “I don’t know about the result of the vote, which depends on each senator’s vote during the session,” he added. You Seangheng, a Sam Rainsy Party senator, said opposition lawmakers will participate in the vote, but had little hope that the law will be amended.
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NGOs issue letter in support of ‘Mon Srey’
Leading civil society organisations have banded together to defend the woman at the centre of opposition deputy leader Kem Sokha’s alleged love affair, claiming her rights have been violated and the charges against her are “baseless”. In a joint statement, 20 organisations – including Silaka, Adhoc and Gender and Development for Cambodia – said Khom Chandaraty, also known as “Mon Srey”, had her privacy violated by social and local media and had been defamed by charges of false testimony and prostitution.
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Eviction of beach businesses begins at Ochheuteal
Fourteen business owners from Ochheuteal Beach in Sihanoukville plan to file official complaints after provincial joint forces pulled down their stores over the weekend as authorities finally began the long-planned – and controversial – eviction of beachside businesses. On Saturday, 100 personnel led by the deputy governor of Sihanoukville used excavators to destroy the 14 beachfront stores, each belonging to a local family. The operation finally made good on the government’s warning last month that it will demolish more than 100 businesses located on Ochheuteal, Otres and Royal beaches if they don’t clear out by March 13.
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New group set up to tackle land disputes
The newly appointed minister of land management and urban planning, Chea Sophara, has announced a working group to handle petitions and complaints lodged by land dispute victims. In a letter dated April 8, Sophara appointed 11 officials to the new committee, which includes staff from the ministry’s cadastral, legislation, planning and finance, and land inspection departments.
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Ministry Cancels Visa for Deported Spanish Activist
The online “e-visa” granted last week to deported environmental activist Alex Gonzalez-Davidson has been canceled, according to a letter obtained Saturday, with the Foreign Ministry citing a “technical error” in issuing it despite the activist’s presence on a blacklist.
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