The timeline below offers a visual representation of some of the key human rights violations and restrictions which have occurred in the Kingdom of Cambodia from 2013-2023, and follows our previous timeline covering 1993-2012 which can still be accessed here. The incidents recorded on the timeline from 2013-2023 represent human rights violations by the Royal Government of Cambodia as well as third parties, cover a wide range of issues including extrajudicial killings, convictions of human rights defenders, land grabs, forced evictions, restrictions of the rights to peaceful assembly, association and expression, torture, arrests, arbitrary detention and legislative and institutional developments relevant to human rights. The information is gathered from the Khmer and English media, CCHR’s own Fundamental Freedoms Monitoring Project, and from the commentary and analysis of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) working on these issues. Each entry is accompanied by a short description and provides links to media articles reporting on the event or to the work of CSOs active in the field. It should not be forgotten that the cases included in the timeline are those that have garnered the attention of the media or CSOs, and are as such particularly emblematic or high-profile. The timeline is therefore only representative of a small fraction of the actual number of human rights violations occurring in Cambodia.
-
Phnom Penh
Physical and judicial threats against journalists and or human rights defenders
On 18 June 2021 VOD journalist Heng Vichet was stopped and threatened by local authorities while filming a temporary stopping place for Vietnamese people's floating houses and fish farms after they were evacuated by the authorities from various locations in Phnom Penh. The authorities also took photos of him and his press card and warned that he would face legal action if any photos or videos were published.
-
Phnom Penh
Physical and judicial threats against journalists and or human rights defenders
On 20 June 2021, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court charged Mother Nature co-founder Alejandro Gonzalez Davidson and environmental activists Sun Ratha and Yim Leanghy with insults to the King and conspiracy as well as activist Ly Chandaravuth with conspiracy.
KhmerTimes | RFA | FreshNewAsia | CamboJa | Khmernas
-
Battambang
Restrictions on the freedoms of expression, assembly and association
On 16 June 2021, the Battambang Court of Appeal confirmed the conviction verdict rendered by the Siem Reap Provincial Court against Kea Sokun, a young rapper jailed for raising social issues in his songs. Sokun was arrested and found guilty of incitement under Articles 494 and 495 of the Cambodian Criminal Code at the end of 2020 after releasing a song critical of the Government about the long-standing Vietnamese-Cambodian border issues.
-
Phnom Penh
Physical and judicial threats against journalists and or human rights defenders
On 16 June 2021, three young environmental activists from the Mother Nature Cambodia group, Ly Chandaravuth, Sun Ratha and Sith Chhivlimeng, were arrested and taken into custody in Phnom Penh shortly after filming sewage in the capital. The three activists were accused of plotting to topple the government. A fourth activist, Yim Leanghy, was also called for questioning and detained in Kandal province on the same day.
VOD | Thmey Thmey | CamboJa | VOD | VOA
-
Stung Treng
Restrictions on the freedoms of expression, assembly and association
Kong Ry, a Prey Lang Defense Network activist was summoned for interrogation by the chief of Kaing Cham commune, Stung Treng province after criticizing the authorities for not fulfilling their duty to protect the forest. Local authorities accused him of giving false information to the media. Kong Ry also reported that the commune chief tried to make him sign an agreement promising that he would stop his forest protection activities.
-
Phnom Penh
Land rights and forced evictions
Without prior notice, local authorities and mixed security forces started clearing land belonging to restaurant owner Kim Chhay in Prek Leap commune, Chroy Changva district, causing damages to his property. Kim Chhay's land is located near a multimillion-dollar development project being built by the Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC), a company involved in various land disputes with other residents of the same area.
-
Phnom Penh
Physical and judicial threats against journalists and or human rights defenders
On 8 June 2021, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court denied the bail requests of union leader Rong Chhun and youth activist Sar Kanika, both in detention for over 11 months, representing nearly half the length of the maximum sentence they would receive if convicted for incitement. According to the court, the two activists were not present at their hearings due to concerns over the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Cambodia's prisons. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court justified its decision not to grant them bail because there were many other defendants involved in the case, and their trial would be scheduled shortly.
RFI | RFA | CamboJa | FIDH | Cambodianess
-
Phnom Penh
Restrictions on the freedoms of expression, assembly and association
On 4 June 2021, a group of over ten women, also known as the Friday Wives, were met with violence by the authorities while gathering in front of the OHCHR office in Phnom Penh to submit a petition to the UN calling for the release of their jailed activist family members. Police officers shoved some of the peaceful protesters into flower beds and attempted to seize their banners and pictures of their imprisoned relatives. The authorities stated that the Friday Wives did not ask for permission before gathering and that their protest was harmful to the public order.
-
Kandal
Land rights and forced evictions
On 3 June 2021, military forces opened fire on a protest over a land dispute in Tuol commune, Ang Snoul district, Kandal province, organized by about 300 villagers, hitting and injuring Mom Chantha, a 56-year-old villager. He and other protesters were trying to stop bulldozers from clearing their rice fields with barricades when the incident happened, fields that the Government has planned to use for military purposes and garbage disposal without paying any compensation to the affected villagers. The military forces stated that the soldiers who shot the protesters acted in self-defense and that the disputed land had been granted to the Defense Ministry by sub-decree. On their side, the villagers claimed that they had called on the Government to seek a fair solution to the land dispute without success.
Fresh News | RFA | VOA | RFA | VOD
-
Kandal
Torture, arrests and illegal detentions
On 30 May 2021, Hong Sok was arrested by local authorities in Kien Svay district, Kandal province after participating in a protest related to a long-standing land dispute involving a CCP lawmaker and affecting the three villages of Prek Pol, Kandal Krom and Samrong Thom. Sok joined a group of affected villagers who decided to block National Road 1 in protest of the ignorance by district officials regarding the land dispute that was supposed to be solved in 2017. The land dispute relates to farmland that farmers of the three aforementioned villages have been forcefully stopped from using. While Prime Minister Hun Sen intervened in the dispute in the past and granted 1 hectare of land per affected family, the villagers have never received any land titles as they were promised.
-
Banteay Meanchey
Torture, arrests and illegal detentions
On 30 May 2021, the Banteay Meanchey authorities arrested six individuals for allegedly attempting to grab state-protected land in the Ronean Daun Sam Malai wildlife sanctuary. Three of the arrested individuals from Poipet were trying to distribute food donations to families affected by a land dispute in a protected area of Toul Pongro commune, Malai district, Banteay Meanchey province, and the three others were residents of the wildlife sanctuary. After being detained and questioned for two days, two of the sanctuary residents, Youeng Chan and Heng Roeun, were charged with fourth-grade natural resource offenses under Articles 62 and 56 of the Protected Areas Law. The three food donors, Vorn Vion, Y Sok Sreng, and Kim Sok San, current or former members of the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association (IDEA), were also charged for providing money and food to the two sanctuary residents. The five of them were placed in pre-trial detention by the provincial court. The sixth person, also a resident of the protected area, was released shortly after his arrest. Residents of the Pram Phum community located within the wildlife sanctuary have been affected by a land dispute since 2020 when they filed a complaint that they were facing evictions after a private company started developing a project in Toul Pongro commune.
-
Preah Sihanouk
Land rights and forced evictions
Around 100 villagers of Prey Nob district of Preah Sihanouk province organized a protest to support six families after the Prime Minister's nephew Hun Chea had temporary homes set up on their land on the night of 28 May 2021. Hun Chea has claimed that his company owned several plots of land in the area despite the local authorities not knowing how he has obtained the land titles.
-
Pailin
Restrictions on the freedoms of expression, assembly and association
On 9 April, a court in Pailin province convicted and sentenced a schoolteacher, Yuong So Da, to one year in prison for incitement after he criticized a monument to Cambodian-Vietnamese ties. In a Facebook post from September 2020, Yuong So Da said: "Now Cambodia has a [Cambodia-Vietnam] monument in nearly every province and soon the country will have two flags to raise”, implying that the Cambodian-Vietnamese Friendship Monument symbolized Cambodia’s increasing subservience to Vietnam. Yuong So Da was tried and found guilty in absentia of incitement to commit a felony under Article 495 of the Criminal Code.
-
Phnom Penh
Restrictions on the freedoms of expression, assembly and association
In May 2021, the NagaWorld casino company started to implement their plan announced in April 2021 to lay off about 1,300 of their 8,000 employees due to the impacts of COVID-19 global pandemic on their business operations. Among the workers who received notices are more than 500 leaders, members, and activists of the NagaWorld labor union. The union members facing layoff were requested by their employers to arrange the conditions of their termination without union representation, or otherwise, they would receive lower severance pay. In response to a move seen as an attempt to silence them, representatives of the NagaWorld union issued a statement requesting the casino to stop the layoffs and start discussions, a request that the company ignored. The NagaWorld union also started collecting its members' thumbprints in order to file a complaint to the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training to fight their layoff.
CamboJa | Cambodianess | VOD | Camboja
-
Phnom Penh
Physical and judicial threats against journalists and or human rights defenders
On 21 May 2021, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court denied bail to seven activists of the Khmer Thavrak youth group and the Khmer Student Intelligent League Association, despite their period of pretrial detention exceeding the limit allowed by law. The activists were arrested and charged with incitement to create social chaos for their campaigns to protect Cambodia’s natural resources and environment in September 2020. They have been held in custody for nine months, which is three months over the maximum permissible. The court claimed that the activists had not been brought to trial due to concerns over the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
-
Kandal
Land rights and forced evictions
On 14 May 2021, around 200 farmers affected by a new airport project in Kandal province started a protest by blocking the road to the project's site after the project developer, Overseas Cambodia Investment Corp (OCIC), sent tractors and started destroying their rice crops while its ongoing land dispute with affected villagers has yet to be resolved. Protests continued in the following months as negotiations on the compensation price between OCIC and the affected villagers have failed.
-
Banteay Meanchey
Restrictions on the freedoms of expression, assembly and association
Kang Nakorn, an official for the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association (IDEA), an informer-workers union, was arrested and detained by the Poipet police while collecting names and ID numbers of union members facing economic issues amid the ongoing COVID-19 community outbreak. Kang Nakorn was placed in a two-week quarantine at a high school in Banteay Meanchey province. Authorities justified taking him in because he had visited a noodle shop after COVID-19 cases were found there. However, the IDEA president said that his detention and quarantine did not make sense as various other people had gone to the same noodle shop, and only Nakorn had been arrested. He also stated that Nakorn's initiative to collect members' names was driven by charity and not politics. Poipet police said they did not know if they would release him upon completing his quarantine as an investigation was still ongoing.
-
Phnom Penh
Physical and judicial threats against journalists and or human rights defenders
Ex-CNRP youth activist Sin Khon was violently beaten with metal rods by four unidentified men in broad daylight at a Chroy Changva market in Phnom Penh. Sustaining a head injury, Sin Khon was taken to the hospital, where he received 12 stitches. A monk of the pagoda where the former opposition youth activist lives said that a few days before the attack, he saw a group of strangers visiting the pagoda and appearing to be surveilling the area. Sin Khon reported that he was still involved in supporting jailed or judicially harassed ex-CNRP members and distributing food to residents in need in red zones during the capital's lockdown. He also said that he had published media posts about political issues. Sin Khon filed a complaint to the district police despite having little hope that authorities would take any action.
-
Pursat
Physical and judicial threats against journalists and or human rights defenders
On 11 May 2021, VOD reporter Khut Sokun was harassed by local authorities while covering a protest of Kampong Chhnang villagers regarding an ongoing land dispute between Pursat and Kampong Chhnang provinces. Pursat authorities confiscated his equipment, including a recorder, and deleted the photos that he had taken of the protest. The equipment was returned to him shortly after, the Pursat deputy governor stating that his equipment was confiscated to ensure that the information he had reported was clear. Khut Sokun was able to take photos at a second protest later in the same day.
-
Kampong Chhnang
Physical and judicial threats against journalists and or human rights defenders
TN Hot News journalist and publisher Keo Ratana reported having faced harassment by local authorities while reporting a villager protest against a decision of the Kampong Chhnang Provincial Court in favor of a wealthy landholder on a land dispute in Kampong Chhnang province. Keo Ratana claimed that he was physically confronted by one of the landholder's bodyguards and that the landholder requested the police present at the scene to arrest him, which they did not.