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As Elections Loom, Voter Registration Stalled
A group of election-monitoring NGOs have expressed alarm at what they say are inexplicable delays in starting to rebuild the national voter list, with concerns that the National Election Committee (NEC) may be leaving things too late for the 2017 commune elections. The new NEC was established in April 2015 with equal representation from the ruling and opposition parties after a landmark deal that ended a year of political turmoil over alleged fraud during the 2013 national election.
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Drivers Set to Protest Capitol Tours
Former drivers for the Capitol Tours bus company will once again gather in front of the company’s headquarters in Phnom Penh’s 7 Makara district today and said they will remain there until they receive a resolution to their grievances, according to a letter jointly signed by the drivers and sent to the media as well as the director of Capitol Tours yesterday. The protest has been planned for more than a month, having been previously disallowed by authorities. The protest will be non-violent, the letter said.
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Ministry Hits Back at Rebuke of Contentious Telecoms Law
The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications has defended the controversial new Telecommunications Law following a biting legal analysis by rights group Licadho, which says the legislation is a veiled tool to silence critics and potentially criminalize private expression.
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South Korea envoy defended as graft probe continues
A relative of Cambodia’s ambassador to South Korea, who was detained on Monday amid a corruption probe, yesterday claimed the envoy was innocent, as the Anti-Corruption Unit reportedly prepared to send the case to court. Mao Sam Oeun, brother-in-law of Suth Dina, said he had spoken yesterday for 15 minutes with the ambassador, who reiterated earlier claims that he was being set up. “He told me that there were some officials who were unhappy with him and had set up this scenario,” Oeun said.
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Expressway Plans Scrapped Amid Eviction Fears
Ambitious plans for an elevated expressway above a set of derelict railway tracks linking central Phnom Penh to the airport have been scrapped, Prime Minister Hun Sen announced on Tuesday, two months after senior government officials warned that it would negatively impact at least a thousand families to the political advantage of certain “bad individuals.” “I will not allow the expressway to be built,” Mr. Hun Sen said. “If brothers and sisters ask, just tell them the prime minister announced that it will not be built. It is done.”
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After Assault by Government Guards, Protesters Blamed
Despite video evidence showing that government security guards assaulted two labor activists in Phnom Penh on Monday during a protest against the new union law, authorities on Tuesday blamed the unionists for the violence.
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Telecom Ministry defends law
The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications yesterday rejected concerns that the controversial Telecommunications Law passed last year gave the government unchecked powers to secretly eavesdrop. Licadho published a briefing paper on Thursday describing the law as full of “serious threats” to privacy and free expression.
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Clash as Union Law Approved
At least one unionist was injured during a clash with 20 Daun Penh district security guards after a group of unionists gathered outside the National Assembly yesterday to protest against the newly drafted Trade Union Law, which was approved despite the protest. At 10 am, while the National Assembly was holding a meeting to discuss and approve the Trade Union Law yesterday, the 50 protesting unionists were set upon by authorities, who allegedly assaulted and injured unionist Soth Chit, an official with the Cambodia’s Workers Movement Union Association.
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South Korea envoy Suth Dina taken in for questioning by ACU
Cambodia's controversial ambassador to South Korea, Suth Dina, was questioned yesterday by the Anti-Corruption Unit following a probe into his spending and complaints by Foreign Ministry staff and Cambodian migrant workers, according to ACU president Om Yentieng. Speaking yesterday morning, Yentieng said it was likely Dina, who was taken from the Foreign Ministry at 8am for questioning at the ACU, would be detained. Though the ACU president was unreachable last night, local media reported Dina had been held by the unit.
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Violence as Assembly Passes Trade Union Law
CPP lawmakers unilaterally passed a controversial trade union law on Monday despite protests by unions, alarm among employers and warnings from the International Labor Organization (ILO) that the bill may violate domestic law and labor conventions signed by Cambodia.
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ACU to Arrest Ambassador to South Korea
Suth Dina, Cambodia’s often–criticized Ambassador to South Korea, will face arrest after being questioned by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) today, according to ACU President Om Yentieng. It is unknown at this point what Mr. Dina’s offense was. Mr. Yentieng said Mr. Dina had been the subject of multiple complaints from workers in both South Korea and Cambodia, as well as from government officials from the ACU and the Ministry of Economy and Finance, whose officials had traveled to Seoul to inspect Mr. Dina’s case.
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Assembly OKs Hun Sen’s Cabinet Reshuffle
Long-serving Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong was replaced by erstwhile Telecommunications Minister Prak Sokhon, and Commerce Minister Sun Chanthol was transferred back to his old transportation portfolio on Monday as a raft of changes to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s cabinet were approved in the National Assembly.
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Capital residents worry health centre plan is a land grab
Hundreds of residents of a village in Phnom Penh’s Por Sen Chey district yesterday protested the possible loss of community land. The villagers said the 10-acre plot at Plerng Ches Rotes commune’s Tuol Kei village had a building that served as a community centre and recreation hall.
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Trade union law passes
The National Assembly yesterday passed a contentious trade union law, just hours after a group of pro-union demonstrators and Daun Penh district security guards clashed violently outside. The vote, which came at the end of a nearly six-hour debate, saw 67 Cambodia People’s Party lawmakers vote in the affirmative – Prime Minister Hun Sen was absent from the vote – with the law remaining unchanged from the draft that was presented to the National Assembly.
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US Labor Rights Groups Urge Gov’t Cooperation with Unions over Labor Law
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) urged the government yesterday to consult with unions over the controversial Trade Union Law, with the National Assembly scheduled to debate the issue next Monday. According to a letter from the AFL-CIO sent to Prime Minister Hun Sen and signed by director Cathy Feingold, the federation remains deeply concerned with the content of the proposed Trade Union Law
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Residents, Activists Call for City to Stop Filling In Lakes
Protesters from Phnom Penh’s lakeside communities spent an hour facing off with police on Thursday on a road on the former Boeng Kak lake before turning around and taking a different route to the National Assembly, where they demanded an end to the infilling and development on the city’s remaining lakes. Some 200 protesters from communities surrounding the Boeng Tompun, Boeng Trabek, and Boeng Kak lakes gathered on the sand dunes that now stand where the latter lake was before being filled in over the past decade for a CPP senator’s real estate project.
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Truckloads of police sent to stop Mother Nature petition
Some 50 police were dispatched yesterday to stop six relatives of jailed Mother Nature activists from marching to the prime minister’s house with a petition. Activists Try Sovikea, Sun Mala and Sem Samnang were arrested in August last year in relation to their protests against sand dredging in Koh Kong province.
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Union law violates human rights, finds OHCHR
The United Nations Human Rights Commission in Cambodia (OHCHR) yesterday released an analysis of the contentious draft trade union law finding key clauses to be in violation of existing Cambodian law, human rights norms and the ILO’s conventions. The report, which evaluated more than 80 articles in the draft, found that sections related to the scope of the proposed law, financial reporting requirements and criteria for electing union leaders, could be viewed as government intervention and discriminatory in light of the various laws and international norms to which Cambodia is a signatory.
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Police Block Families of Mother Nature Activists During March
Security forces on Thursday blocked two mothers and a wife of jailed activists from the environmental group Mother Nature from walking to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house to protest their family members’ imprisonment, before a representative of the premier’s cabinet chastised them for using the term “nature” frivolously.
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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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