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Group’s prison visit curtailed
In a move seemingly incongruent with the government’s plans to offer clemency to a number of female inmates on International Women’s Day on Sunday, a local rights group announced yesterday that new restrictions introduced by authorities have forced them to cancel prison activities marking the occasion. Licadho said, “with deep regret”, that its annual prison activities – which include speeches and dances, and providing care packages to female inmates, guards and children living in prison with their mothers – had been cancelled.
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CCHR Campaigns to Release Land Activists
PHNOM PENH, Mar. 6 (Khmer Times) – The Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) organized a campaign to write postcards calling for the release of a dozen land activists, including a former monk. Executive director of CCHR Chak Sopheap said that they will distribute postcards to community members, NGOs, and stakeholders to write their messages. She added that this campaign calls for the release of all land activists, and said, “They are not alone, we all think about you and all of you are protected.”
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Women’s rights: Groups issue petition; MPs tout strides
At a press conference yesterday, representatives of 15 NGOs that focus on women’s rights in Cambodia introduced a petition that will be submitted to political parties, government ministries and the National Assembly, demanding increased protection for women. Just three days shy of International Women’s Day, the organisations invited attendees to sign the petition, which highlights issues that continue to negatively affect women in Cambodia.
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Civil Society Groups Call for Release of Boeung Kak Activists in Cambodia
Civil society organizations have called for the release of 12 land rights defenders and activists imprisoned for their involvement in land disputes related to the Boeung Kak development project in the Cambodian capital, saying they have been jailed for exercising their fundamental freedoms.
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The sore-loser proviso
The ruling and opposition parties have added a provision to a soon-to-be passed draft election law that aims to prevent any party winning seats in the National Assembly from subsequently boycotting parliament. The decision comes after Prime Minister Hun Sen last month called on bipartisan working groups drafting amendments to the current election law to include a rule that would see boycotting parties stripped of their seats.
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New Election Law to Strip Assembly Seats if Parties Boycott
The revised national election law—expected to come before parliament this month—includes a provision that allows National Assembly seats to be taken away from any political party that attempts to boycott parliament following an election, according to a draft of the law made public Thursday.
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Women’s Rights Activists Stage Flash Mob to Raise Awareness
A group of activists staged a flash mob in Phnom Penh’s Wat Botom park Thursday evening, performing the Madison and the cha-cha-cha to bring attention to women’s rights in the lead-up to International Women’s Day on Sunday. “[W]e want to raise awareness in the public, especially young people, get them involved in our campaign. We wanted to do something fun and fresh,” said Seng Reasey, an assistant to the director of Silaka, an NGO that helped to organize the event.
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Montagnard claims ‘false’
The UN refugee agency yesterday rejected claims from the Interior Ministry that it knows 10 Montagnards hoping to be assessed for asylum are not legitimate refugees. Vivian Tan, regional press officer for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said comments made by Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak in an interview this week were untrue. On Wednesday, Sopheak said that, despite not yet having their claims registered or assessed, the ministry had determined that the 10 asylum seekers are illegal immigrants.
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Boeung Kak land talks fail
Following negotiations yesterday with Phnom Penh Governor Pa Socheatvong, representatives of 12 Boeung Kak community families complained that City Hall was not offering them nearly enough land to replace what had previously been taken from them. The negotiations took place a day after Hong Sokkheng, rumoured to be the 51-year-old sister of a high-ranking Cambodian People’s Party member, said she would accept an offer of far less land than that which was taken from her in 2010.
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Kratie Farmer Charged With Raping 8-Year-Old Niece
The Kratie Provincial Court on Tuesday charged a farmer with raping his 8-year-old niece multiple times at his home in Sambor district last month, police said Wednesday. Suon Vuoch, 49, was arrested on Monday for allegedly raping his young niece three times inside his house in Kompong Cham commune in early February, according to Huot Leum Heang, chief of the provincial police’s serious crimes bureau.
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Montagnard Minder Tells of Ordeal in Vietnam
As police closed in on Montagnard asylum seekers hiding in the forests of Ratanakkiri province last week, Klan Hoeun, 42, said Wednesday that he knew he had to at least try to get the group to Phnom Penh, to safety.
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An unexpected journey
A Cambodian national who was arrested last week while helping 36 Montagnard asylum seekers reach the capital was himself deported alongside the group to Vietnam, where he was detained and interrogated for more than five days, he told the Post yesterday. The disclosure came as Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak revealed that 10 other asylum seekers who have arrived in Phnom Penh in recent weeks, and have yet to have their claims registered or assessed, have been determined to be illegal immigrants.
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Abandoned workers seek factory sale
After the sudden, unannounced disappearance of their factory’s owner last Friday, more than 400 garment workers at DF Fashion Apparel (Cambodia) in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district gathered at the factory yesterday, demanding back wages.
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Journalists to Lodge Complaint to ACU Over Court Corruption
Two local journalist associations are planning to file a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) this week accusing the Preah Vihear Provincial Court’s acting chief prosecutor of charging journalists with extortion because they reported on an illegal-logging racket inside his family.
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Report: rights not defended
The government has failed to meet its obligations in upholding civil and political rights, human rights groups have alleged. A report, released yesterday ahead of a UN Human Rights Committee session later this month, documents what the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and local rights groups Adhoc and Licadho describe as the “government’s failure to respect, protect, and fulfill the fundamental civil and political rights guaranteed by” the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
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Government to Start Small as It Moves to End Adoption Ban
Cambodia is inching closer to lifting a self-imposed ban on inter-country adoptions and believes its efforts to reform will soon meet preconditions for restarting the adoption process with countries that outlawed the practice in response to numerous high-profile child trafficking scandals, the government said Tuesday.
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Gov’t Recognizes 13 Montagnards as Refugees
Less than a week after the arrest and deportation of 36 Montagnard asylum seekers in Ratanakkiri province, the interior minister on Tuesday recognized 13 others in Phnom Penh as refugees, the ministry’s spokesman said. The spokesman, Khieu Sopheak, said Interior Minister Sar Kheng signed off on the applications of the 13 Montagnards on Tuesday afternoon, formally recognizing them as refugees.
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Gov’t back for seconds at Licadho
For the second time in as many weeks, the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction has asked rights group Licadho to provide data collected on the identity of land dispute complainants. In a letter released yesterday, Vuthy Vannara, director of the ministry’s secretariat, said that data already provided by Licadho was “unclear”
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New step towards adoptions
Despite Cambodia’s unofficial freeze on inter-country adoptions, the Ministry of Social Affairs recently urged partner countries to reforge, in principle, their adoption partnerships with the Kingdom. In a statement issued on Monday, the ministry opened the application process for international adoption agencies, as only adoption agencies accredited by receiving countries and licensed by the ministry are allowed to provide inter-country adoption services in Cambodia.
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Refugee status on track for 13
Just days after deporting dozens of Montagnard asylum seekers, government officials yesterday announced that a group who arrived in Cambodia in October have been unofficially deemed refugees, in a move analysts say is likely to anger close ally Vietnam. Officials at the Interior Ministry told the Post that the Refugee Department, which is in charge of assessing asylum claims, had recommended that all 13 Montagnards – an indigenous group from Vietnam’s central highlands – be recognised as refugees.
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