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Human rights ‘deteriorating’: UN rapporteur
The UN special rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia yesterday described a political situation that is “deteriorating” in the lead up to the 2017 and 2018 elections, though one that hadn’t reached the “dangerous tipping point” she warned of late last year. Rhona Smith, who concluded her 10-day visit to the country with a press conference, said there’s concern that the law in the Kingdom is being used as a “political tool rather than a legal tool prosecuting justice”, and called for its fair and equal application to all political parties to ensure protection of democratic space.
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Land Conflict Victims Call for a Stop to Lake Filling
More than 300 protesters from about 40 communities affected by land disputes throughout the country launched the Free the Lakes campaign yesterday, marching through the capital to the National Assembly accompanied by monks before submitting a petition to the governing body. The protesters gathered on a large swathe of sand-filled area that was formerly Boeung Kak lake. Congregating behind the mosque next to the area, they planted lotuses in the ground before beginning a march to the National Assembly. They were stopped briefly by about 50 police officers and Daun Penh district security guards before being allowed to continue on their way.
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Communities unite to oppose lake filling
More than 500 villagers from 40 communities across the country gathered yesterday at Boeung Kak in Phnom Penh to launch a campaign against the filling of lakes for commercial development projects. Representatives from communities affected by the filling up of lakes, supported by the presence of around 10 monks, launched the “Free the Lakes” campaign highlighting the challenges faced by people who were evicted to make way for private-sector projects.
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Dozens of Officers Stop Families of Imprisoned Activists
The family members of three Mother Nature activists who have been in pretrial detention in Koh Kong provincial prison for the past seven months were blocked yesterday by Phnom Penh authorities as they tried to walk to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house to ask for his help in the activists’ cases. Sann Mala, Try Sovikea and Sim Somnang were arrested last August after missing court appearances they were summoned to. They were charged in relation to demonstrations against sand dredging vessels belonging to Vietnamese companies in Koh Kong.
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Cambodia at ‘Dangerous Tipping Point’: UN Special Rapporteur
The continuing exclusion of women from the political process, the role politics plays in the courts and the ongoing repression of political speech were all points raised by the UN’s Special Rapporteur to Cambodia after her 10-day fact-finding mission yesterday. Rhona Smith, the UN’s Special Rapporteur to Cambodia, spoke about her second mission to the Kingdom at a press conference yesterday. While she praised various government actions, such as the raising of judicial salaries and the registration of Montagnard asylum claims, she also critiqued the continuing exclusion of women from the political process, the role politics plays in the courts and the ongoing repression of political speech.
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Workers in the dark on controversial draft union law
With the National Assembly set to vote on whether to adopt the controversial trade union law on Monday, the majority of Cambodia’s industrial workers remain unaware of the crossroads at which Cambodia’s employers and workers stand. “I just heard in the news about [the union law], but I don’t know it in detail, whether it will advantage or disadvantage us,” one worker said during her lunch break in Phnom Penh’s Russey Keo district this week, expressing a view common among the many the Post interviewed this week.
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Licadho Criticizes Telecommunications Law
Human rights organization Licadho yesterday released a legal analysis of the new Telecommunications Law, saying the law grants the government broad powers to monitor phone, email and text message communications between people without their knowledge or consent and could restrict political freedom in Cambodia. It also raised concerns that the government could use the law to take control of private telecommunications firms.
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Telecommunications law allows gov’t to spy: Licadho
The government has granted itself pervasive snooping powers to effectively monitor all electronic communication and punish anything deemed to have caused “national insecurity”, a legal analysis of the recently passed telecommunications law has warned. In a briefing paper released yesterday, rights group Licadho cites a litany of “serious threats” posed by provisions in the law – approved in December – to privacy and freedom of expression. Among the chief concerns, Article 97 permits “secret surveillance” of any and all electronic telecommunications with the approval of a “legitimate authority”, which is not clearly defined.
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Cabinet Accepts Win Shingtex Worker’s Petition
More than 300 former workers at the Win Shingtex (Cambodia) factory, a supplier for US retail giant JC Penny, filed a petition to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s cabinet yesterday morning asking the government to intervene after the workers had their wages and benefits cut as a result of the company terminating their contracts earlier this month. Hath Yum, 25, a worker representative, said yesterday that protesters flocked to the Prime Minister’s home by truck and motorbike to file the petition, with a cabinet official accepting it. He promised a government response by today.
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Pursat village leaders arrested for selling state land
A village chief and his assistant accused of fraudulently selling 2 hectares of state-owned forest in Pursat province have been arrested and sent to the Veal Veng district Forestry Administration headquarters. Ouk Bunthoeun, chief of Smert village, and his assistant Nheb Vuthy, 40, allegedly sold the land for between $200 and $500 per hectare to three men from Battambang who subsequently cleared it of timber.
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Parties asked to adopt TI anti-graft platform
Transperancy International Cambodia (TIC) yesterday launched an anti-corruption policy platform it hopes that political parties will adopt ahead of commune and national elections slated for the next two years. Policy suggestions in the platform include widening the scope of the proposed Access to Information Law to all ministers, officials and public enterprises; public declaration of party finances and a politically independent process for the appointment of the Anti-Corruption Unit leadership.
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Factory Workers Petition Prime Minister
About 300 employees of the shuttered Win Shingtex garment factory traveled to central Phnom Penh on Wednesday to ask Prime Minister Hun Sen for help in securing the money they believe they are owed under their contracts.
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Rainsy Says French Investigating Grenade Attack
Speaking via video-link at a ceremony on Wednesday marking the 19th anniversary of the 1997 grenade attack in Phnom Penh, self-exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy announced that a French court had re-opened an investigation into the deadly attack he has long blamed on Prime Minister Hun Sen. Unidentified assailants lobbed four grenades into a protest being held by Mr. Rainsy near the old National Assembly in March 1997, killing at least 16 and injuring more than 120, one of the worst mass killings in the country’s modern era. No one has ever been prosecuted for the attack.
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Adhoc Barred from Holding Event in Kandal Province
Human rights group Adhoc said they were stopped by provincial government officials from holding a training session about human rights, laws, democracy and decentralization in Chhvaing and Chrey Loas communes in Kandal’s Ponhea Leu district yesterday. The group lambasted local leaders after the dispute, saying they have no authority to decide on what events people in their communes can and cannot attend. They were granted permission by the commune chiefs to hold the training sessions, but later had it revoked by the CPP-appointed district and provincial governors.
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Villagers ask PM to intervene in Battambang land dispute
About 160 families from three communes in Battambang province yesterday submitted a petition to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s cabinet and the Ministry of Justice asking the government to intervene in a long-running land dispute. The villagers claim they are the rightful owners of 800 hectares of land the government granted to 1,299 families in the province through a social land concessions in 2009, said Kim Dareth, chief of Bavel district.
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Capitol Tours Drivers Denied Bail for Second Time
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court denied bail to two former drivers for the Capitol Tours bus company who were arrested and detained early last month after being involved in a protest that turned violent when they and fellow protesting drivers were set upon by a large mob of weapon-toting tuk-tuk drivers, according to court documents. Signed by municipal court investigative judge Ros Piseth, the court order said that both Nan Vanna and Ros Siphay had been denied bail.
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Preah Vihear villagers allege rubber company retaliation
Villagers from Preah Vihear’s Kulen district, where last week two rubber company guard posts were torched, yesterday alleged security guards from the same company had looted their homes and threatened to burn them. Green Rubber, whose guard posts were burned last week, was granted a 6,000-hectare economic land concession (ELC) in 2012. Villagers claim to have lived on 2,000 hectares of the ELC since 1998.
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Pursat village chief sold land illegally, say police
District police in Pursat’s Veal Veng district have accused a village chief of selling 2 hectares of state-owned forest land to three men from Battambang province, who then proceeded to clear the land of all the trees. The accused, Ouk Bunthoeun, chief of Smert village, who allegedly sold the land to the three men claiming that he owned it, will now be charged with fraud and initiating the clearing of forest land by district police.
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Court Drops Charges Against Two Mother Nature Monks
The Koh Kong Provincial Court has dropped conspiracy charges against two founders of the environmental NGO Mother Nature, but the group’s charismatic executive director, Spanish national Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, remains on the hook for the same alleged crime, a court official said on Tuesday. Mr. Gonzalez-Davidson, who was deported from Cambodia last year, said in response that he planned to attempt to return to face prosecution, but that the provincial court was “paranoid” that his presence would spoil plans for a show trial.
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Prey Lang forest activist's attacker ID’d
The Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) believe they know who is responsible for a suspected axe attack on a member and have called on the government to take action. PLCN activist Phon Sopheak suffered leg wounds during the attack in the early hours of Sunday morning as the activists were wrapping up a five-day patrol combating illegal logging in Kratie province.
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