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Evictions Signal Coastal Development Dilemma
With the threat of eviction hanging over businesses on Sihanoukville’s O’Chheuteal and O’Tres beaches, land rights advocates congregated in Phnom Penh this week to give voice to thousands of families locked in land disputes with powerful firms turning swaths of coastline into tourism destinations. Last month, the owners of bars, restaurants and hotels on the popular beaches were given weeks to leave the area or face forced eviction, with the local government accusing the businesses of squatting on state land.
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Clinton notified of Boeung Kak release, emails show
A day after meeting Hillary Clinton in June 2012, Foreign Minister Hor Namhong moved to assure the then-US secretary of state that her exhortations to release 13 imprisoned Boeung Kak activists would be met, leaked emails suggest. The emails sent from Clinton’s private email server are among a trove of more than 32,000 recently made searchable by Wikileaks.
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Holdouts Reject New Offer to Leave Dam Site
More than 90 villagers in Stung Treng province on Tuesday rejected compensation packages for the land they will lose to the under-construction Lower Sesan 2 hydropower dam, a local official said.
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UN human rights rapporteur discusses judicial sector reform
The independence of the country’s judiciary was among the issues that UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Rhona Smith raised yesterday during a meeting with the minister of justice as part of her 10-day visit. During her meeting with Ang Vong Vathana, Smith received an update on the progress to reform three controversial judicial laws that were passed in 2014, which critics claim further compromised the independence of the Kingdom’s oft-maligned courts.
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UN Envoy Discusses Beating of Lawmakers
The U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia said on Tuesday that she raised the violent attacks on opposition lawmakers outside the National Assembly in October during the first day of official meetings for her latest fact-finding mission to the country.
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Unions seek sit-down with premier over draft law
Failing to receive a response to a letter submitted to Prime Minister Hun Sen via his Facebook page last week, a group of unions yesterday took their cause to the Council of Ministers, this time submitting a formal letter requesting a sit-down with the premier to discuss further revisions to the draft union law before it is voted on the National Assembly next month. The unions say there are more than a dozen points that still need to be addressed, and in its current form, the law is in violation of international labour conventions, weakening the ability of unions to represent their members.
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Villagers torch ELC guard posts in land dispute protest
More than 200 people from five villages in Preah Vihear and Siem Reap provinces on Monday burned two rubber company guard posts to the ground in protest of the planned clearing of at least 1,000 hectares of disputed farmland and forests. In 2012, the government granted a 70-year, 6,000-hectare economic land concession (ELC) spanning both provinces inside the Kulen Prom-Tep Wildlife Sanctuary to Ly Chhuong Construction and Import Export (later renamed Green Rubber).
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Henan in lead for airport expressway
In a letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen, government ministers have recommended a Chinese-owned company take the reins of the multi-million dollar Phnom Penh airport expressway, amid ongoing frustrations from residents who may be impacted by the development. Henan Provincial Communications Planning Survey and Design Institute had the edge on local bidders Hohibbah Engineering and Overseas Cambodian Investment Company (OCIC), according to a letter co-authored by the Ministry of Public Works, the Phnom Penh Municipality and Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Keat Chhon.
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Gov’t Continues to Stall on Expressway Public Forum
After promising two weeks ago to share information in a public forum about a planned expressway to the airport from central Phnom Penh, the Transport Ministry yesterday morning was still unable to give residents of the area an indication of what will be demolished after meeting with a number of relevant stakeholders. The closed-door, three-hour meeting at the Transport Ministry was attended by officials from the Finance Ministry and City Hall, members of the Council of Development of Cambodia (CDC), village chiefs and representatives of the eight would-be affected communities.
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NGO implicates gov’t in forestry graft
Government rangers, environment department officials, military and police officers tasked with protecting the Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary in Kampong Speu are allegedly taking bribes from illegal timber haulers at six different checkpoints, according to an undercover operation by a local NGO. Officials yesterday denied the allegations, but the Natural Resources and Wildlife Preservation Organization plans to submit a complaint to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s cabinet and the government’s Anti-Corruption Unit next week to seek intervention, according to Chea Hean, director of the NGO.
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‘Advice’ for judiciary questioned
A transparency advocate yesterday cautiously greeted a plan for consultation between judges, prosecutors and Justice Ministry officials handling land dispute and other controversial cases, though an international lawyer said it could compromise judicial independence. The consultation – to be conducted via instant-messaging services like WhatsApp and Telegram – was put forward at a meeting of judges and prosecutors with the minister of justice in Phnom Penh on Friday.
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Assembly Asks Sokha to Provide ‘Clarification’
The National Assembly issued a statement on Monday calling on deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha to respond to a complaint filed by a group of students last week over audio recordings leaked online that purport to be Mr. Sokha flirting with a mistress. “To safeguard the prestige of the National Assembly and the honor and dignity of parliamentarians, His Excellency Nguon Nhel, the acting president of the Assembly, has tasked the Assembly secretariat with forwarding this petition to Your Excellency,” the statement said.
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UN Envoy Meets With Rights Workers
The U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia met with local rights advocates on Monday as she began her second fact-finding mission to the country, one of the meeting’s attendees said.
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ASX Chief Steps Down Amid Probe Into Payment
The chief executive of the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) resigned his post on Monday in the wake of an investigation into a possible $200,000 bribe paid by a gaming firm he previously headed to a consultancy with connections to a sister of Prime Minister Hun Sen. The Australian Federal Police announced last week that it had opened an investigation into Tabcorp over the payment, following a report by Fairfax Media claiming the money had gone to an unnamed Cambodian consultancy with ties to one of Mr. Hun Sen’s sisters in an ultimately abandoned bid to set up an online gaming operation here.
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Cassava pickers push Pheapimex for wages
Twenty-two cassava farm workers for Pheapimex Company in Pursat province are demanding back wages from the Cambodian conglomerate, claiming the company hasn’t paid them for more than three months. Ny Bol, one of the workers, said the farmers were all from Kampong Chhnang province, but came to Pursat for seasonal working harvesting cassava.
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Workers at JC Penny Supplier Rally for Unpaid Benefits
Following more than two weeks of protests in front of their shuttered factory in Por Senchey district, more than 500 workers from Win Shingtex (Cambodia) Co. Ltd tried to march yesterday to the Ministry of Labor, the Council of Ministers and Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house to seek help ensuring the Hong Kong-owned company respects Cambodian labor law and pays them wages and benefits due since it closed without notice on March 5. The workers, who made pajamas for US retail giant JC Penny, said they were stopped by authorities before they even reached the headquarters of the ministry.
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Coastal villagers call for dispute resolutions
A coalition of villagers in long-running land disputes with development companies along Cambodia’s coastline held a press conference in Phnom Penh yesterday calling for authorities to resolve their cases. Some 20 village representatives from Koh Kong, Preah Sihanouk, Kampot and Kep provinces said yesterday they had been involved in more than 40 land disputes unresolved for up to nearly a decade.
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Another former Capitol employee arrested for passing out fliers
A former Capitol Bus Company employee was charged with defamation on Saturday after he was arrested in Battambang for handing out leaflets asking people to boycott the company. Ly Hong, who is now free on bail, spent two nights in detention after his Friday arrest. A provincial prosecutor said the leaflets contained potentially untrue information, which “could be defamation”.
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Preah Vihear land grant illegal: Adhoc
Local rights group Adhoc has cried foul after roughly 1,200 square metres on 2 hectares of land that used to be home to an airport in Preah Vihear province have been granted to a local official to build a house. According to Adhoc provincial coordinator Lor Chhan, the provincial authorities who manage the land illegally gave the plot to Nuth Sophorn, Preah Vihear town governor, and he began to build a home at the location last month.
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UN decries Facebook jailing
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a statement of concern on Friday regarding the jailing of Kong Raiya, 25, over a Facebook status in August seemingly calling for a “colour revolution”. The statement described Raiya’s case as “a clear diminishing of democratic space in Cambodia”.
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