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Mondolkiri Governor Replaced Amid Local Discontent
Eng Bunheang, the much-criticized governor of Mondolkiri province, will be replaced by his deputy today in a ceremony presided over by Interior Minister Sar Kheng, according to officials. While the government maintains that Mr. Bunheang is only being replaced because he has reached retirement age—he is 60—-activists and rights workers suspect his removal is related to discontent he has created among indigenous communities and his failure to curb rampant illegal logging in the eastern province.
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Villagers opposed to new forest sanctuary
The Cambodian government has moved to protect a tract of land in Tbong Khmum province in a bid to preserve wildlife near the Vietnam border, but local villagers and the rights group Adhoc say the step will disenfranchise small-scale farmers. In a sub-decree signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen last week, a forest spanning 199 hectares in Ponhea Krek district was designated as a protected area for conserving forest and wildlife.
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Anti-Dam Activist Denies Illegal Logging Charge at Trial
On trial at the Koh Kong Provincial Court on Wednesday, anti-dam activist Ven Vorn denied the illegal logging charge laid against him last year over his involvement in the construction of a wooden community center, his lawyer said. In October, Mr. Vorn was arrested and charged with illegal logging, which carries a prison sentence of up to five years, over wood he used to help build the community center for his village in the Areng Valley. Rights groups have accused the state of suing Mr. Vorn because he had joined several protests against a government-backed plan to dam the valley for a hydropower project.
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Labor Leader Wants Unionists’ Charges Dropped
A prosecutor at the Kompong Speu Provincial Court said on Wednesday that charges would stand against five union officials who were released on bail last month after they were arrested during a brawl with a rival association, despite calls by a prominent labor leader to drop them. The officials, from the Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW), clashed violently with representatives of a factory-aligned union outside the Agile Sweater factory on January 12—the same day that about 400 workers at the factory were fired for striking over working conditions.
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Program to deal with LGBT issues in works
The Ministry of Information says it is working with LGBT rights groups to create a regular radio program that discusses LGBT issues, with the aim of making society more welcoming. Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith is cooperating with NGO Cam-ASEAN Youth Future founder Srun Srorn, who will organise the program.
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Trial of Areng activist starts in Koh Kong
The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday dropped a “tampering with evidence” charge against prominent Areng Valley environmental activist Ven Vorn, but kept the charge of harvesting forest products without authorisation. Vorn, 36, a community representative and commune councillor with the Cambodian People’s Party, was arrested in October and appeared in court for the first time yesterday. If he is found guilty on the remaining charge, he could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.
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Critics question ministry’s claim of resolving most labour disputes
The Ministry of Labour yesterday announced a nearly 40 per cent drop in the number of Cambodians who went on strike last year before then taking credit for successfully resolving the vast majority of those work stoppages, a claim met with widespread scepticism from unions. According to its annual report, unveiled by Labour Minister Ith Samheng in Phnom Penh, there were 336 cases of strikes in 2015, a dip of just 2 per cent from the year before. The number of workers taking part in those strikes, however, dropped 40 per cent from 2014’s total to 82,000 workers.
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Forty faint at Svay Rieng SEZ factory
Officials blamed food poisoning for sparking the mass fainting of about 40 garment workers in a factory in the Svay Rieng border town of Bavet on Monday afternoon. Kao Hao, deputy police chief of Bavet, said the workers at the RKT factory in the town’s Tai Seng Special Economic Zone fainted after some of them suffered from food poisoning.
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Office workers vow to continue protests
More than 150 office workers from a Japanese quality-control company protested outside their office at the Cambodiana Hotel in Phnom Penh yesterday and threatened to continue if the company refused to negotiate. Staff representative Sin Sambo said the workers were demanding that Kuwahara (Cambodia) provide pay for 18 vacation days during which they were forced to work, reinstate a $10 monthly bonus, end anti-union discrimination and remove administration chief Young Sovanara, whom the employees accuse of masterminding anti-union activity.
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Voting abroad impossible: PM
Prime Minister Hun Sen has dismissed calls to allow Cambodians living abroad to vote in the next election, claiming it would be impossible under the Kingdom’s proportional representative electoral system. But a vast string of other countries – including Indonesia and several European nations – operate under the proportional representative system yet extend the right to vote to their citizens abroad
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TV9 Reporter Sues Military Police Commander Over Arrest
A television journalist who was briefly detained by military police in Mondulkiri province last week said on Tuesday that he had filed a court complaint against the commander who ordered his arrest.
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TV News Officials in Court for Alleged Defamation
Two senior Hang Meas HDTV officials were in Takeo provincial court on Tuesday regarding defamation charges that were leveled against their company after they aired claims that the military chief of Angkor Borei district police allowed Vietnamese nationals to fish within Cambodian waters in return for money, officials said.
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PM gets his photo-op with Obama as Cambodian-Americans protest
A grinning Prime Minister Hun Sen walked up to US President Barack Obama and shook his hand in California yesterday, lending the premier his long-sought aura of legitimacy even as hundreds of angry Cambodians protested his 31-year rule less than half of a kilometre away. The ASEAN summit that kicked off yesterday at the Sunnylands resort in Rancho Mirage is the first ASEAN meet held in the United States, and all but two of the leaders of the 10-nation bloc are in attendance.
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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 opposition Senator Hong Sok Hour. While the IPU declined to comment on their meetings with the Interior Ministry, National Assembly lawmakers and the UNHCR yesterday, Justice Ministry spokesman Chhin Malin said after his ministry’s meeting that he welcomed the opportunity to clarify Cambodia’s laws to the group.
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Pair Charged For Logging In Sanctuary
The Pursat Provincial Court on Sunday charged two men with illegally clearing forest inside a wildlife sanctuary, while authorities are still searching for the man they were allegedly working for, officials said on Monday. Provincial prosecutor Tan Seihak Dechak said that Neak Hoeum, 35, and Mom Dy, 44, both residents of Veal Veng district’s Anlong Reap commune, were arrested inside the Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary on Friday and charged at the court on Sunday.
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Official gets called out in sanctuary logging case
Two men have been arrested over, and a military official implicated in, illegal logging that took place at the protected Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary last week. Nak Hoeum, 35, and Mom Dy, 44, were arrested on Friday during a two-day crackdown on illegal clearing in the wildlife sanctuary, Veal Veng district military police commander Puth Bunchhoeun said.
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Child rape sentence upheld for NGO volunteer
An ex-volunteer for an anti-trafficking NGO yesterday lost his appeal bid to overturn a seven-year sentence for raping children in his care. Sem Sam, 20, who volunteered at Agape International Ministries (AIM) in Phnom Penh’s Svay Pak commune, was found guilty of sexually abusing four boys under the age of 15 by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in October 2014. The Appeal Court yesterday upheld the verdict.
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ANZ still owes villagers over sugar loan: Oxfam
Australian banking giant ANZ has come under fire for its response to a scandal over its financing of a sugar plantation previously linked to forced evictions and child labour in Kampong Speu province. Titled Still Banking on Land Grabs, Oxfam’s Australia branch released a report yesterday slamming four large Australian banks for their ties to land grabs in developing countries.
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Protesters Hurl Eggs at World Bank Office, Promise to Return
Residents and evictees from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak and Borei Keila neighborhoods returned to the World Bank’s country headquarters on Norodom Boulevard on Monday to hurl eggs at the front gate and demand that the international lender leave Cambodia.
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Khmer Rouge Tribunal Investigating Judges Order Case 004 Split
The Khmer Rouge tribunal on Monday announced it had split the government-opposed Case 004 into separate files, creating a new case for proceedings against Im Chaem, a former district chief during the Pol Pot regime.
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