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Government Releases Draft Law on Food Safety
The Commerce Ministry on Wednesday released a draft of the country’s first food law, which establishes a Food Safety Authority charged with protecting domestic consumers and ensuring that exports meet international standards.
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Woman Charged Over Bid to Pimp Daughter, 14
A woman who on Monday attempted to prostitute her 14-year-old daughter to a group of men staying at a hotel in Phnom Penh’s Tuol Kok district was on Wednesday charged by the municipal court and jailed, a police official said.
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Chinese Police Start Placing Surveillance Cameras
Chinese police began installing surveillance cameras on the streets of Phnom Penh on Tuesday, following a donation from Beijing to assist authorities in monitoring crime and traffic in the capital, an official said Wednesday.
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Fishing trafficker arrested
A man was arrested in Prey Veng province’s Pea Reang district on Tuesday for allegedly coercing 30 villagers to work on fishing vessels in Thailand and Malaysia. According to the police report, Sim Soeung, 35, a resident of Pea Reang district, trafficked more than 30 men into abusive and unpaid fishing jobs between 2010 and 2014, with the promise the work would bring in a monthly salary of $250. “In fact, the victim did not get any salary and they were mistreated, and over-worked for long hours with no rest,” the police report reads, noting: “All of them were rescue by the embassy and sent back to their homeland.” The report also explains that police interviewed the repatriated victims, and through their testimonies, came to learn the identity of the alleged broker. Chan Yon, 30, mother of one of the victims, yesterday told the Post that her son was able to name the perpetrator when he returned home.
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A Dozen Montagnards Agree to Repatriation From Cambodia to Vietnam
A dozen ethnic Montagnards who sought refugee status in Cambodia willingly returned to their home country of Vietnam Thursday after Hanoi gave assurances it would not punish or discriminate against them, according to rights group and United Nations officials. The 12 were part of a group of 31 Montagnards who fled neighboring Vietnam in April citing discrimination, and immediately crossed through Cambodia into Thailand to apply for asylum. Fifteen members of the group returned to Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh and moved into the office of the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), but three of them voluntarily returned to their home in Vietnam’s Central Highlands soon after.
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Cambodian Opposition Party Senators to Boycott Vote on Draft Law on NGOs
Opposition lawmakers in Cambodia’s Senate said Thursday that they would boycott an upcoming vote in the upper house of parliament on a draft law that regulates nongovernmental organizations working in the country if senators failed to amend the legislation. The Senate’s Legislation Commission is reviewing the Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations (LANGO) following its unanimous approval by 68 ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) representatives in the lower house on Monday. Fifty-five lawmakers from the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) boycotted the vote in the lower house. Hong Sun Hour, a senator from the Sam Rainsy Party, said opposition party members would boycott any Senate debate on the draft law unless upper house lawmakers amended it first.
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Alcohol Law to Go to Council of Ministers by Week’s End
A draft of Cambodia’s first alcohol law—which if passed would introduce a drinking age of 21 and ban the sale of alcohol between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m.—will be sent to the Council of Ministers by the end of the week, Health Minister Mam Bunheng said Tuesday.
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“Cambodia’s NGO Bill Threatens A Free And Independent Civil Society†– UN Expert Urges Senate To Reject It
GENEVA – United Nations human rights expert Maina Kiai today called on the Cambodian Senate to reject the draft Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organisations (LANGO) that “unequivocally threatens the very existence of a free and independent civil society in Cambodia.” The NGO Bill will soon be examined by the Senate, after being approved on Monday 13 July by the Cambodian National Assembly. The Bill was unanimously adopted by the 68 parliamentarians belonging to the ruling party, while the 55 parliamentarians in the opposition boycotted the vote. “Should the draft law be adopted, any group advocating for human rights, basic freedoms and good governance may be shut down and criminalized. It will ultimately have a disastrous impact on Cambodian citizens’ democratic participation in furthering the development of their country,” the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association warned.
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Sok Bun begs for mercy
Property tycoon Sok Bun, wanted for the vicious attack of a former TV star, publicly pleaded for his freedom yesterday, pledging to relinquish his “oknha” title and offering his victim $100,000 in compensation, even as Interior Minister Sar Kheng called for his arrest. Bun has been on the run since images from a security camera in a Phnom Penh restaurant first leaked onto the internet last week, showing him savagely beating Ek Socheata, better known to her fans as Ms Sasa. With calls for Bun’s arrest mounting, Kheng yesterday weighed in on the issue, warning senior police officials against “obstructing” the search during a meeting at the Interior Ministry.
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Court hears guards’ stories
The trial of 11 opposition activists facing charges of “insurrection” – laid in the wake of a violent protest precisely one year ago – continued yesterday with testimony from four of the 29 Daun Penh district security guards who are plaintiffs in the case. The July 15, 2014, protest saw opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party supporters gather to protest the ongoing closure of Freedom Park, which had been ringed with barbed wire by authorities. As district security guards – the untrained forces who had waged a campaign of violence against peaceful protesters in the preceding months – moved in to disperse the crowd, opposition demonstrators turned on them, injuring several.
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CPP Lawmaker Visits Factory After Protest
After about 200 workers protested in Phnom Penh on Tuesday morning, a CPP lawmaker said she traveled to a Chinese-owned garment factory in Kandal province to lobby management to rehire seven workers, including six who say they were fired earlier this month for taking part in a small protest.
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ILO launching new garment newsletter
The International Labour Organization (ILO) on Thursday will launch a news bulletin focusing on Cambodia’s garment and shoe sector, aimed at providing data for Cambodian policymakers during annual minimum wage talks. ILO officials intend on releasing the newsletter four times per year, in tandem with quarterly reports on the industry, Matthew Cowgill, an ILO chief technical adviser on labour standards in global supply chains, said yesterday. “It covers issues such as exports, factory openings and closings, wages, growth . . . basic statistical information on the Cambodian garment and footwear sector,” Cowgill said. “I guess the primary intended readership would be members of the [Ministry of Labour’s] Labour Advisory Committee [LAC], which deliberates [the] minimum wage each year.”
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Man held for ‘raping daughter’, aged 12
A Kampong Chhnang province man is being held after police there arrested him this week for allegedly raping his 12-year-old daughter. Police in the province’s Boribor district arrested Yorn Voeun, 33, in his home this week, after his wife reported that their daughter said he raped her, Nhem Philin, chief of the Boribor police’s penal section, said yesterday. “We went to the suspect’s house to arrest him at night, while he was sleeping,” Philin said. “At first, the suspect denied the accusation, but after we questioned him, he confessed.” Voeun’s daughter said that when she went with her father and 7-year-old brother to fish at a river on Monday, he told her brother to stay where he was, and took the girl to a secluded area, Philin said.
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Striking garment workers march to ministry
About 100 striking workers from a Phnom Penh garment factory yesterday delivered a letter to the Ministry of Labour, asking for intervention in their industrial dispute. Workers at Akeentex Pte Ltd walked off the job last week, after management refused to meet nine demands workers called for, said Suth Chet, a Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW) representative at Akeentex. The employees’ conditions include three months’ salary for workers on maternity leave, an end to forced overtime and the right to unionise freely.
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Court begins Chakrya queries
Reporters and supporters of human rights activist Ny Chakrya were barred from entering Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday, as he sought to avert charges being laid against him in a case described by advocates as “judicial harassment”. Chakrya, head of the human rights and legal aid section of local NGO Adhoc, faces potential charges of “public defamation”, “acts of slanderous denunciation”, and “publication of commentaries to put pressure on the judiciary”, brought against him by prosecutors at Siem Reap Provincial Court. The accusations are based on comments he made during a May 12 press conference in Phnom Penh condemning the arbitrary arrest and detention of Ven Lorn and Beourn Sok, two residents of Chup Romdeng village in Siem Reap province’s Svay Leu district, who are involved in a high-profile land dispute.
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Cambodian Garment Factory Workers Demonstrate for Subsidies
At least 500 workers from three garment factories in Cambodia demonstrated on Tuesday outside the Labor Ministry in the capital Phnom Penh, demanding that government officials intervene in their quest for better working conditions and food and transportation subsidies. The workers from two factories owned by the company Akeentech in Phnom Penh and one owned by Sixplus in southern Cambodia’s Kandal province marched through the streets until they reached the ministry building, where they submitted petitions asking government officials to intervene because their factories refused to meet their demands for subsidies about a week ago.
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Arrest Warrant for Tycoon Filmed Beating Woman Yet to be Issued
PHNOM PENH (Khmer Times) – The prosecution of Sok Bun, the business tycoon who was caught on camera assaulting former TV personality Ek Socheata, also known as Ms. Sasa, has stalled as the municipal court waits to issue an arrest warrant. In a criminal complaint filed Thursday July 2, Ms. Sasa accused the tycoon of attempted murder, according to her lawyer Put Theavy. Eleven days have passed since Ms. Sasa filed her complaint, but officials in the Interior Ministry and Municipal Court say the court still has not issued a warrant for his arrest. The case came to the public’s attention when a leaked security camera video of the assault began circulating on the internet last Wednesday. The video shows Mr. Bun repeatedly punching, kicking and stomping on Ms. Sasa while his bodyguard points a gun at her face. Following public outrage over the incident, the effort to bring Mr. Bun to trial in criminal court is gathering speed. “[The Municipal Court] plans to choose a prosecutor soon,” Mr. Theavy told Khmer Times.
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CPP Passes NGO Law Amid Opposition Boycott
The CPP’s 68 lawmakers pushed a controversial NGO law through the National Assembly on Monday morning without debate and without the opposition CNRP, whose 55 members boycotted the session in protest over legislation they say the government could use to stifle dissent.
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Loggers claim NGO extortion
A loacal NGO director and a village chief in Battambang’s Samlot district were summoned for questioning by district police today over a complaint filed by six loggers, who claim the men attempted to extort $6,000 from them under the threat of violence. The loggers, who regularly collect timber and natural resources from Angkor Ling Mountain in Ta Tork commune, claim Chan Vai, a director of a local conservation NGO, stopped the men as they returned from illegally collecting rosewood last Wednesday. The loggers claim the director drew his gun and demanded each of them pay a $1,000 fine, according to Chhim Yorn, deputy police chief of Ta Tork police.
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New Cambodian NGO law passed despite criticism
The Cambodian parliament passed a new law on Monday making changes to the regulation of more than 5,000 local and international non-governmental organisations (NGO) in the country. While all 68 parliament members of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) voted in favour of the law, 55 members of the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) boycotted the voting session. According to the new legislation, NGOs in Cambodia must report all their financial and social activities to the government. Moreover, the NGOs must not “jeopardise peace, stability and public order or harm the national security, national unity, culture, and traditions of Cambodian society." The legislation, known as the Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations (LANGO), enables the government to pursue legal action such as bans and suspension of licences against NGOs which do not comply with the law.
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