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New UN Envoy Wraps Up First Mission to Cambodia With Call For Judicial Reform
The new United Nations envoy to Cambodia concluded her first official visit to the country Thursday by calling on Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government to ensure the independence of the judiciary amid a host of land and labor disputes she said are encroaching on the rights of the public. Rhona Smith, a British human rights scholar who assumed the duties of U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia in March, praised the recommendations of her predecessor Surya P. Subedi and four other previous envoys, and said improving the country’s judicial system was key to building a vibrant democracy. “Further strengthening the rule of law, developing and ensuring the independence of those bodies with specific roles in the protection of human rights, particularly the judiciary, is essential for building the stable democratic nation that Cambodians aspire to live in,” she said in a statement issued at the end of her nine-day mission. “Care must be taken to properly address situations which have created widespread discontent, including land and labor disputes.”
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Rights group asks for land data sharing
Rights group Licadho has called on the government to make available statistics on the full extent of economic land concessions (ELCs) in response to data collected by the organisation over five years. According to a statement issued by Licadho yesterday, government ministries have failed to provide comprehensive figures on ELCs, noting that various ministries have issued only incomplete lists of companies involved and concessions granted.
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Freed Child Laborers to Return Home; Couple Will Face Court
Twenty-two child street sellers rescued in a police operation in Phnom Penh will be returned to their families as soon as their parents sign an agreement promising to never again sell their sons and daughters as laborers, an official said Wednesday.
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Press Statement by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, Professor Rhona Smith
It is an honour and a pleasure for me to have undertaken my first mission to the Kingdom of Cambodia since my appointment by the United Nations Human Rights Council in March 2015 as the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia. At the outset, I wish to thank the Royal Government of Cambodia for their invitation and the cooperation extended before and during the mission.
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Sok Hour’s case made
Hong Sok Hour’s attorney on Monday submitted a five-page legal document making the case for charges of forgery and incitement against the Sam Rainsy Party senator to be dropped by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court. Longtime opposition counsel Choung Choungy argued the facts of the case support neither that the maps were forged nor that social chaos had resulted from the posting of the senator’s Cambodia-Vietnam border presentation to social media. Choungy said that the allegedly forged maps Sok Hour used had been downloaded from the internet and thus, while not being officially recognised documents, their use represented no criminal act. Given that, Sok Hour’s immunity as a senator should remain intact, he maintained.
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Major Garment Trade Union Rejects Vote on Minimum Wage
Trade unions representing some of the country’s 700,000 garment workers failed again Wednesday to reach a consensus on how much of a raise to ask for in coming negotiations with employers, with at least one major union refusing to participate in a secret vote.
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CNRP deputy calls for neutral courts
Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) deputy leader Kem Sokha met with United Nations Special Rapporteur Rhona Smith yesterday in Phnom Penh, telling reporters afterwards he called on Smith to encourage judicial independence in the Kingdom. “I informed Smith that in order to resolve human rights problems in Cambodia, we first have to reform the judicial system,” said Sokha, who is also vice president of the National Assembly. The closed-door meeting took place at the National Assembly, with Smith declining to answer questions afterwards.
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Anti-Human Trafficking Unit Raids Recruitment Company
A cache of passports and other documents was discovered Wednesday at the Phnom Penh office of a recruitment agency that is accused of deserting dozens of prospective migrant workers on the Thai border and conning them out of hundreds of dollars each, an official said.
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NEC seeks to help monks vote
he National Election Committee (NEC) submitted a letter to the Ministry of Interior on Monday recommending that bureaucratic obstacles preventing the Kingdom’s 60,000 monks from registering to vote be resolved. NEC spokesman Hang Puthea said yesterday that monks are legally entitled to voter registration, as “monks are people of Cambodia”, but are currently blocked from registering because they lack national ID cards. In 2013, new national ID cards equipped with electronic and biometric technology were released, and current election laws make them a requirement for voter registration.
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Rohingya refugee still waiting on trip home
Rohingya refugee who has chosen to leave Cambodia rather than stay as part of a controversial resettlement deal with Australia will have to wait at least another 20 days to return to Myanmar, a government official said yesterday. Interior Ministry spokesman General Khieu Sopheak said Cambodian authorities had arranged an exit visa for the refugee but had been told by Myanmar authorities that the necessary paperwork was still being processed. “He’s waiting for the passport or travel documents from Myanmar,” Sopheak said. “The paperwork is in Yangon.… 10 days ago they said at least one month.”
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City Hall Makes Final Offer to Evicted Families in Borei Keila
Phnom Penh officials announced on Monday that the city had finalized its offer of compensation to 154 families who have spent years protesting their eviction from the Borei Keila neighborhood.
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Gov’t Tells Unions to Pick a Minimum Wage or Lose Their Say
The Labor Ministry on Tuesday warned unions that if they failed to reach a consensus on a new minimum wage for the garment sector ahead of Friday’s Labor Advisory Committee meeting on the issue, the committee would not consider any proposal from the unions at all.
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Brutal gang rape case goes to appeal
he Court of Appeal yesterday heard pleas for reduced sentences for five men sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court for a gang rape in 2013. According to testimony read in court by judge Chay Chandaravan, construction worker Long Ravuth met with the victim, a 17-year-old factory worker, at Kambol Market, where he asked for her phone number and allegedly persuaded her to leave with him.
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Over 20 Child Street Sellers Rescued in Raid
More than 20 child laborers were rescued in Phnom Penh on Tuesday after anti-human trafficking authorities arrested a couple who had forced the children to work as fruit sellers in exchange for payments made to their families, according to police.
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Report finds ELCs affected 17K families
Community representatives, civil society organisations and opposition members have urged the government for more urgent action to resolve land disputes following the release of annual data showing that all 24 provinces were affected in 2014, with hundreds of cases still unresolved. The call came at yesterday’s launch of a comprehensive research report by NGO Forum, which compiles data from media reports, rights groups and fieldwork. According to the findings, 2014 saw a total of 352 land disputes, only 68 cases of which were completely resolved.
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SIM card crackdown
Anyone who purchased a mobile phone SIM card without providing appropriate ID can expect to see those phone numbers terminated, while any retailer selling SIM cards without collecting identification documents faces arrest, the government announced yesterday. “Telecom operators must tell [existing] customers, including foreigners, that they must complete ID documents within three months or their numbers will be automatically deleted,” Chhay Sinarith, National Police deputy chief, said yesterday at a press conference held jointly with Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications Director-General Mao Chakyra.
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Top cop says no capacity to convict
A high-ranking police official yesterday bemoaned Cambodia’s lack of capacity to fight cybercrime, just a week after the government’s announcement of a new Anti-Cybercrime Department prompted fears of an online clampdown on dissent. Citing an evaluation by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime that some Asean nations lack the ability to effectively fight cybercrime, Deputy National Police Chief Chhay Sinarith said Cambodia was among those nations without the money and expertise to investigate crimes committed via the internet.
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Montagnards mull leaving
With the clock ticking for Montagnards in Phnom Penh to leave the country or face forced repatriation, some of the asylum seekers have asked the UN Refugee Agency to help them return to Vietnam. Vivian Tan, a regional spokesperson for UNHCR, said “a few people” have asked the agency “about the possibility of facilitating their return”. But, she added, “the numbers and plans are not definitive at this point”. Hundreds of Montagnards – a predominantly Christian indigenous group from Vietnam’s central highlands – have fled to Cambodia over the past year citing religious and political persecution.
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R’kiri Families Reach ‘Major Breakthrough’ With Firm
Hundreds of families in Ratanakkiri province have reached a partial deal with Vietnamese rubber firm Hoang Anh Gia Lai that will spare their remaining farms and forests from development.
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3 overseas brides back after long ordeals
Three Cambodian women rescued from arranged marriages in China arrived in Phnom Penh on Friday after suffering years of domestic abuse in the southern province of Jiangxi. Chhet Phany, 23; Chhun Him, 27; and Chhet Sophea, 27, who are originally from the provinces of Kampong Cham, Kampong Speu, and Kratie, respectively, left Cambodia in 2013. According to Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Chum Sounry, the women were repatriated after intervention from the Cambodian Embassy in Beijing. “They were mistreated by their husbands and appealed for help to come back home.
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