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Land rights elusive for indigenous minorities
Bureaucratic inefficiency and “endemic” corruption are leading factors in land loss among Cambodia’s 190,000 indigenous peoples, who are under siege from land grabs by powerful elites and exploitative corporations, according to a report launched yesterday by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights. The European Union-funded report focuses on the difficulties indigenous groups face in acquiring collective land titles (CLTs), which CCHR characterised as the surest legal safeguard against losing land to economic land concessions (ELCs).
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Carlsberg defends its partner in labour row
Brewing giant Carlsberg has denied accusations that Cambrew, which brews Angkor beer and is half-owned by the Danish beer conglomerate, illegally fired 11 beer promoters for striking against longer working hours and fixed-term contracts. In a response issued on Tuesday, Carlsberg claimed that 11 beer sellers who said they were fired on January 21 for going on strike had in fact refused to sign their latest one-year fixed contracts beforehand. Carlsberg also said that Cambrew conducted extensive talks with unions about the decision to shift working hours until 11pm.
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Pro-CPP youth group vows counter-protest
Lending weight to recent warnings by Prime Minister Hun Sen, youth supporters of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party have vowed to rally at the opposition’s Phnom Penh headquarters if a planned demonstration confronts the premier during his state visit to the US next week. In a video posted to Facebook yesterday, Sim Sovannara and Saing Sung, the purported leader of a pro-CPP group called the Will of Overseas Youth, cautioned Cambodia National Rescue Party supporters in the United States against repeating the events of last year.
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Garment workers at Weibo paid final wages
Workers from the shuttered Turkish-owned Weibo factory at the Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone ended weeks of protests on February 1 after they were finally paid their last month’s salary, although security guards and drivers for the firm are still waiting for their paychecks. “It’s finished, we paid all the workers,” a Weibo manager confirmed yesterday.
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Tuk-tuk Association to Lodge Complaint against Licadho
The Cambodia Confederation Development Association (CCDA), a well-known tuk-tuk and moto-taxi association, plans to lodge complaints against local rights group Licadho next week over a statement the NGO co-signed with 33 other civil society groups regarding the association’s involvement in a Saturday protest at the Capitol Tours Bus company headquarters that left at least 14 injured. CCDA president Ae Sophos said in a press conference in front of Capitol Tours yesterday that his association will give Licadho one week to retract the statement and remedy its allegations against the CCDA.
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Former APLE director gets 3 years for abuse
Former orphanage director and one-time head of child protection NGO Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE) Hang Vibol was yesterday convicted of sexually abusing six children living under his care and sentenced to three years in prison, according to a Phnom Penh Municipal Court official. Presiding judge Kim Rathnarin found Vibol, the former director of Our Home orphanage, guilty of committing indecent acts against a minor under 15 years old, the official, who declined to be named, said.
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Tuk-Tuk Group Says Licadho Edited Bus Driver Attack Video
An association of tuk-tuk drivers on Wednesday hit back at criticism of its members for violently attacking a group protesting Capitol Tours bus drivers in Phnom Penh on Saturday, claiming a rights group released footage of the attack that failed to tell the whole story. The attack occurred when a group of 40 fired bus drivers and a handful of supporters—who have been protesting for months—gathered outside the company’s headquarters in Prampi Makara district to demand their jobs back, claiming that they were illegally dismissed for attempting to unionize.
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Bribes alleged at Phnom Oral sanctuary
Government rangers, paid to protect the Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary, allow loggers to process and transport illegally felled timber in exchange for bribes, an NGO alleged yesterday after conducting an undercover operation in the protected forest. The claims – which were denied by an official from the sanctuary, overseen by the Ministry of Environment – were levelled by director of the Natural Resources and Wildlife Preservation Organization (NRWPO) Chea Hean, who also alleged loggers were tipped-off prior to a recent raid on the forest, which spans Kampong Speu and Pursat provinces.
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Unionists link arrests to ‘threatening’ trend
The Free Trade Union has sent another request pleading with the government to release two of its members arrested earlier this month, linking the pair to a recent spate of arrests and charges against unionists across the Kingdom. On Tuesday, the FTU sent a letter to the Labour Ministry and the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia calling for the release on bail of two FTU unionists arrested on February 2 for alleged incitement at the Cerie garment factory in Kampong Speu province.
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Orphanage Head Convicted of Child Sex Abuse
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday sentenced Hang Vibol, the former director of anti-pedophile NGO Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE), to three years in prison for abusing 11 victims under his care at the Phnom Penh orphanage he founded in 1999. In the courtroom Wednesday afternoon, Presiding Judge Kim Rathnarin announced that Mr. Vibol had been found guilty of indecent assault with aggravating circumstances, committed at the Our Home orphanage in Meanchey district.
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Sex Offender Given Light Sentence after Years of Abuse
The former head of the child protection NGO APLE, and later the director of the Our Home orphanage and school, was convicted yesterday and sentenced to three years in prison after sexually abusing 11 children inside Our Home between 2009 and last year. Hang Vibol, 46, was charged with an “indecent act against a minor under fifteen years with aggravating circumstances” under article 248 of the penal code, according to Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge Kim Ratnarin.
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More than a Month Later, Four Garment Workers Released on Bail
Four garment workers at the Manhattan Special Economic Zone in Svay Rieng province who were arrested during their protest for a higher minimum wage in December were released on bail late Tuesday evening after being detained for more than a month, a union officer said yesterday. Pav Sina, president of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW), said that the four workers walked out of prison on Tuesday at 7:15 pm to warm welcomes from their families.
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Four Garment Workers Arrested For Walkout Released on Bail
Four garment workers arrested during walkouts and riots at two special economic zones in Svay Rieng province in December were released on bail Tuesday evening, four days after being granted bail by the Court of Appeal. Van Vichet, 24; Paldy Somalyda, 27; Sok Kong, 28; and Chheng Sopha, 35, had an earlier decision denying them bail overturned on Friday, defeating a request from the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia that they not be released due to fears of more industrial action.
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Another Cache of Buried Logs Found Near Oknha’s Sawmill
Authorities have unearthed another cache of high-grade logs buried near a well-known timber dealer’s sawmill in Tbong Khmum province, weeks after finding a stockpile of buried logs on the businessman’s property in the same district.
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Alleged bride brokers unaware of law, court hears
A prosecutor yesterday appealed for a judge to go easy on three garment workers who allegedly attempted to traffic a female co-worker to China for an arranged marriage, saying the trio was ignorant of the law. Chor Chhour, 40, his wife, Boeun Soklin, 33, both of Prey Veng province, and Dul Chandy, 26, were arrested on January 24 and charged with cross-border transportation after the complainant in the case, Khoeun Am, was deported back to Cambodia by Chinese authorities.
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NGO notes uptick in gov’t ‘threats’ against online posters
The Cambodian Center for Human Rights released a public notice on Monday noting a “substantial increase” in the number of people being charged for making anti-government or anti-Hun Sen comments in social media. According to CCHR, seven people have been arrested and at least 24 threatened since August for online comments they made, often directed at the ruling party, Prime Minister Hun Sen or his family.
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Man Douses Wife With Battery Acid in First Attack of Year
Police in Phnom Penh are searching for a man who splashed his wife with battery acid in a fit of jealous rage on Monday night, causing her to suffer severe burns to the face and neck, police said on Tuesday.
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Alleged attackers at Capitol protest to sue
The president of a tuk-tuk and motodop drivers’ association, whose members were recorded on video brutally beating protesting bus drivers over the weekend, said he would file complaints against prominent union and civil society leaders for sparking the violence his own group was accused of instigating. E Sophors, president of the Cambodia for Confederation Development Association, claimed yesterday that he had his own video evidence showing that innocent CCDA tuk-tuk drivers were in fact beaten up by protesters, rather than the drivers beating protesters with sticks, metal rods and hammers, as publicly available videos show.
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Twenty faint at Kandal garment factory
Twenty garment workers fainted on the job yesterday morning at a Chinese-owned factory in Kandal province, an incident workers blamed on fumes from an on-site dye kiln. The fainting at Lin Wen Chih Sunstone Garment Enterprises, which one observer believed to be the year’s first such incident, took place at about 8am yesterday, according to Mou Thavy, 24, an employee there.
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Maid to return from Saudi Arabia as deal nears
Consular officials yesterday were working to repatriate a Cambodian maid fleeing what she described as unfair working conditions in Saudi Arabia, even as the Cambodia’s minister of labour was en route to seal a long-awaited deal to open a pipeline of workers to the Gulf nation. Labour Ministry spokesman Heng Sour said yesterday evening that Labour Minister Ith Samheng was on his way to Saudi Arabia and was “probably” going to conclude a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Saudis for Cambodian workers to be sent there.
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