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Workers Petition for Release of Jailed Unionists
About 200 workers from Kompong Speu province’s Agile Sweater factory traveled to Phnom Penh on Thursday to submit petitions to the government calling for the release of five union officials who were arrested following a violent inter-union brawl on Tuesday. The workers submitted their petitions to the Interior Ministry and Council of Ministers after failing in the morning to convince local authorities to release the Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW) officials, said provincial governor Ou Sam An.
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Talks on Union Law Progress
CPP and opposition lawmakers made modest progress toward reaching consensus on a controversial draft union law on Thursday during their second attempt in as many weeks but still had yet to tackle some of the main concerns many unions have with the proposed legislation. The law proposes to regulate the way trade unions are formed, run and dissolved, but many unions fear the government will use it to further erode labor rights, especially those of the country’s 700,000 garment workers.
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Jailed pol’s daughter offers plea to Obama
The daughter of opposition party official Meach Sovannara has written an open letter to US President Barack Obama, appealing to his own paternal instincts and asking him to intervene on her father’s behalf when Hun Sen visits the US in February with other ASEAN leaders. Sovannara, a US citizen and the Cambodia National Rescue Party’s information chief, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted last July of “leading an insurrection”, a charge widely believed to be politically motivated.
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CNRP Appeals to Supporters To Refrain From Online Insults
With social media increasingly becoming the focal point of political discourse in the country, and the prime minister threatening to take legal action against those who insult him online, the opposition CNRP has issued an appeal to its supporters urging them not to publicly insult others. The statement, issued Wednesday, comes after last week’s arrest of a farmer who threatened on Facebook to kill Prime Minister Hun Sen. Mr. Hun Sen has also complained on his very active Facebook page about people photo-shopping images of his wife.
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Unionists’ Arrest Sparks Protest At Kompong Speu Courthouse
About 400 employees of the Agile Sweater factory protested in front of the Kompong Speu Provincial Court on Wednesday, demanding the release of five union officials who were arrested Tuesday after a violent clash with members of a competing union outside the plant. The arrested men, all members of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW) from Phnom Penh, traveled to the factory on Tuesday morning to support an ongoing strike over working conditions and clashed with representatives of the factory-aligned Trade Union Workers Federation of Progress Democracy.
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For Key Post, the New NEC Mulls an Old Face
Almost a year after the creation of the new National Election Committee (NEC), its nine members will meet on Friday to select a new secretary-general, the person who will implement its reform agenda ahead of elections in 2017 and 2018. The installation of a successor to the current secretary-general, Tep Nytha, is meant to mark the last step in the NEC’s transformation from a committee dominated by CPP apparatchiks to a bipartisan body capable of properly administering the upcoming elections.
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KPP chief offers audio evidence in defamation case
Khmer Power Party president Sourn Serey Ratha yesterday submitted evidence to Phnom Penh Municipal Court to support his defamation and incitement claim against Foreign Minister Hor Namhong. Ratha is suing Namhong for insinuating he was a terrorist, an accusation the government had long levelled against the dissident, who spent more than a year in self-imposed exile after being convicted in absentia of conspiracy.
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More than 70 awaiting deportation
More than 50 Vietnamese immigrants have been detained by the Interior Ministry’s immigration police following two recent raids, bringing the total number of people awaiting deportation for being in the country illegally to 73, according to an official. The unit’s director of investigations, Uk Hai Seila, said 25 Vietnamese nationals were arrested yesterday in Phnom Penh, while 28 were seized in Preah Vihear on Saturday. The two groups join another 20 foreign nationals awaiting deportation after being found either without the proper documents or expired visas, Seila said.
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Families plan march over Koh Kong land dispute
Some 400 people representing 554 families locked in a decade-long land dispute with two sugar companies in Koh Kong province – subsidiaries of a Thai company that sells to producers of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo products – are planning a march to deliver petitions to four commune halls on January 20 requesting intervention from local authorities. Om Phon, a community representative from Sre Ambel district’s Chi Khor Krom commune, said the demonstrators will ride 200 motorbikes and tractors to deliver petitions to the Dang Peng, Chi Khor Leu, Chi Khor Krom and Kandorl commune halls over the 2,436 hectares of disputed land.
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Five Unionists Arrested After Clash in K Speu
Five unionists were arrested in Kompong Speu province on Tuesday and provisionally charged with a trio of crimes after traveling to Chbar Mon City to support workers striking over conditions at a Hong Kong-owned garment factory, local officials and a union leader said. The union officials, from the Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW), clashed violently with representatives of a factory-aligned union outside the Agile Sweater factory just after 7 a.m. on Tuesday after urging some 100 employees to ignore a court injunction ordering them to end the strike, which began on December 25, according to deputy provincial police chief Sam Sak.
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Police Unit Says Almost 300 Crimes Against Children in 2015
The Child Protection Unit (CPU), a police unit supported by the Cambodian Children’s Fund, investigated 292 cases involving serious crimes against children in 2015, its director of operations said on Tuesday. These crimes included 32 homicides, 202 rapes, two gang rapes, six indecent assaults, four serious assaults and four kidnappings, according to the director, James McCabe.
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Smartphone era beckons, says premier
A week after launching his own app, Prime Minister Hun Sun has urged government officials to follow his example and start using smartphones, which he says can make government more effective. “I would like all leaders and civil servants across the country to learn more about how to use smartphones and to catch up with fast-developing technology that benefits our daily work and our entire nation,” the premier said on his Facebook page yesterday.
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Kem Sokha seeking way forward
With Cambodia National Rescue Party president Sam Rainsy having entered his third stint of self-imposed exile in Europe to avoid charges widely seen as politically motivated, the second-in-command has assumed the acting leadership. However, this time Sokha finds himself in a bit of a tricky spot – taking over leadership of party operations and representing it in negotiations at a time of heightened tensions, while taking care not to sideline Rainsy, a scenario that could play right into the hands of Prime Minister Hun Sen.
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‘Detained’ Mother Nature activists file lawsuit
Two activists with NGO Mother Nature and two local community members have filed a lawsuit accusing a representative of the Oudom Seima mining company of illegally detaining them – along with a British filmmaker and a 5-year-old girl – for several hours in December, according to a copy of the complaint obtained yesterday. According to a translation of the complaint, dated December 28 and filed to the Koh Kong Provincial Court, the six were boating in Tatay Krom commune when approached by staff from Oudom Seima – whom they accuse of illegally dredging sand.
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Community Calls for Details on Expressway
Representatives of communities living along the railroad tracks in Phnom Penh waved banners and sang songs outside the Transportation Ministry on Monday, asking for clarification of plans to build an overhead expressway that they feared would further infringe upon their land and homes. Eight communities living along the railway line in Tuol Kok and Daun Penh districts had been told that the ongoing rail renovations would encompass 3.5 meters on either side of the tracks, but grew concerned when Prime Minister Hun Sen announced last week that an overhead expressway would be built along the same route.
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Man who allegedly threatened PM charged
A 28-year-old man arrested on Friday for allegedly threatening and insulting Prime Minister Hun Sen saw his case transferred from Phnom Penh to the Kampong Thom Provincial Court, a provincial prison official said yesterday. Thean Chhorvoan, director of Kompong Thom Provincial Prison, confirmed that Man Sam Orn, a native of Kampong Thom’s Stung Sen town, had been transferred into his custody after being charged at the court there. “He was charged yesterday with death threats and insults by the provincial investigating judge and sent to the prison yesterday . . . Now he is in the provincial prison,” Chhorvoan said.
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Prime Minister Defends Traffic Law, Slams Sister
Prime Minister Hun Sen hit back at critics of the new traffic law on Tuesday, singling out his own sister for what he said were unnecessarily negative Facebook posts. On January 1, Cambodia rolled out a long-anticipated replacement of the Land Traffic Law, which raises fines for scofflaws, limits the number of riders per motorbike and requires passengers to wear helmets.
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Court to call witnesses in case of Bavet strikers
The Svay Rieng Provincial Court has issued summonses to a slew of witnesses in the case of four garment workers arrested for throwing rocks at a factory during violent strikes in Bavet last month. “We have questioned the four workers over the past two weeks. Next week we will summon the factory side and a victim who was injured in the head by the workers; while next Tuesday and Wednesday, we will summon another seven or eight relevant people who know about this incident,” investigating judge Tith Sothy Borachhard said yesterday.
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Union law debated
The first meeting of a bipartisan committee to work out criticisms of the controversial draft trade union law resulted in what unions considered meagre concessions, although the opposition hailed the process’ cooperative spirit. According to Sok Eysan, spokesman for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and chief of the CPP’s wing of the committee, both parties agreed to reduce the number of unions required to form a federation from nine to seven and the number of federations required to form a confederation from six to five.
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Court Will Summon Workers, Owners Over Bavet City Riots
Factory owners and four jailed garment workers will be summoned today to appear at the Svay Rieng Provincial Court in the coming days to provide “clarification” over a series of walkouts and riots that struck two special economic zones (SEZs) in Bavet City last month, a judge said.
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