LIBRARY

17 October 2021

Land grabbing has affected more than 5,000 families in the last two years, showing no signs of slowing down during the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, arrests and jailing of land community members and activists has increased over the last two years, and as of October 2021, there are at least 21 land community members and activists who have been arrested, with 10 people imprisoned.

To celebrate Word Habitat Day, LICADHO is releasing a video about the impact of Covid-19 on community members and activists, and their ongoing struggle in exercising their fundamental rights and freedoms to fight for their land rights.

28 August 2021

Two land community representatives in Svay Rieng province were sent to pre-trial detention today on charges of disobeying administrative measures and obstructing against the implementation of prevention measures, under Articles 10 and 11 of the recently passed Covid Law, which carry up to 5 years in prison and a fine of up to 20 million riels each.

Ms. Yous Sophorn and Ms. En Soth, two representatives from Samaki Chek Meas community in Svay Chrum district, were summonsed by provincial police on Friday morning and were arrested after arriving at the police station. The summons related to a community protest in a rice field involving more than 100 villagers that took place on 2 August 2021, during which authorities accused the two women of not following proper health measures and fined them 2 million riels each. The Svay Chrum district governor told local media at the time that if the women did not pay the fine within one month, they would face additional legal measures.

UN experts in April raised concerns about the “excessive prison sentences and fines” in the government’s Law on Preventive Measures Against the Spread of Covid-19 and other Severe and Dangerous Contagious Diseases, or the Covid Law, which was hastily passed and enacted without proper consultations in March 2021.

28 June 2021

A video featuring the voices and experiences of community members who face over-indebtedness due to microfinance and microloan debt. Difficulties include coerced land sales, child labour, migration, hunger, and other human rights violations. These borrowers have the right to relief.

28 June 2021

Right to Relief is a call for immediate action to be taken by microloan providers - both microfinance institutions (MFIs) and banks - as well as their international investors, including state development banks from Europe and the United States, to investigate the scope of human rights abuses and provide relief to borrowers who have suffered from predatory lending and collection practices. The research spans eight provinces in Cambodia, with each community profile featuring information about the community’s formation in response to a land conflict, and the threat to land tenure security and other human rights now posed by over-indebtedness.

A website features highlights from the 14 community profiles, while a PDF of the report contains more complete profiles and additional information about the project.

28 June 2021

Right to Relief is a call for immediate action to be taken by microloan providers - both microfinance institutions (MFIs) and banks - as well as their international investors, including state development banks from Europe and the United States, to investigate the scope of human rights abuses and provide relief to borrowers who have suffered from predatory lending and collection practices. The research spans eight provinces in Cambodia, with each community profile featuring information about the community’s formation in response to a land conflict, and the threat to land tenure security and other human rights now posed by over-indebtedness.

A website features highlights from the 14 community profiles, while a PDF of the report contains more complete profiles and additional information about the project.

4 June 2021

Soldiers fired bullets at land protesters on Thursday in Kandal province, hitting one man in the shoulder, as a group of about 100 Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldiers faced off against villagers involved in a land conflict in Kandal province, about five kilometres from Phnom Penh. The injured man remains hospitalised, while some local villagers resumed protesting on Friday morning.

The shooting occurred in Tuol Prich commune, Angk Snuol district, in an area that houses several military bases and outposts and has seen a boom in development in recent years. Villagers reported that the soldiers were from the nearby Thmat Pong military school. Videos of the incident show an excavator digging up land while local villagers try to stop it and block National Road 51. Uniformed soldiers can be seen advancing on the villagers and firing dozens of live rounds from handguns and assault rifles into the air, at the ground, and into the crowd of villagers, hitting one man in the shoulder.

9 April 2021

Understanding your rights as a borrower is important. Watch this video to learn about some of the negative consequences and unethical practices in Cambodia's microfinance and microloan sector.

6 April 2021

We, the undersigned groups, are calling on the government to direct all microfinance institutions (MFIs) and banks in the country to suspend all loan repayments and interest accrual for at least three months in order to give borrowers the opportunity to stay home and stay safe during the current COVID-19 outbreak without needing to fear losing their land or homes if they cannot repay their debt.

18 December 2020

The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) today is releasing “The Fight for Freedom: Attacks on Human Rights Defenders, 2018-2020”.“The Fight for Freedom” is not an exhaustive list of all attacks targeting human rights defenders since the beginning of 2018. Instead, it highlights a number of high-profile cases where human rights defenders have been targeted for intimidation, arrest or imprisonment while trying to peacefully exercise their rights to association, assembly and expression as guaranteed both in Cambodia’s constitution and under international law.

18 November 2020

Two community representatives from Koh Kong province have been placed under judicial supervision as hundreds of community members from Sre Ambel district gathered outside the Koh Kong Court of First Instance to call for the charges against their representatives to be dropped. Both women face up to two years in prison if found guilty.

Phav Nheung and Seng Lin had appeared before an investigating judge on charges of defamation and incitement to disturb social security. The women, who will now have to report monthly to district police, appear when summoned by court authorities and will not be able to move house without the court’s permission, represent almost two hundred families who have had hundreds of hectares of vital farmland seized by the Heng Huy Agriculture Group since 2008 to make way for a sugar plantation.

Both representatives were the target of a complaint launched by former community representative Chhay Vy. Vy’s brother, the late commune chief, was accused by the three women in 2019 of having seized land for himself during the unresolved land dispute. Another woman, Khorn Phun, had also been summoned for questioning over defamation charges. However, judicial supervision is not applicable for this charge.

20 October 2020

Every year, communities all over the world come together to celebrate World Habitat Day and the right to shelter. For many Cambodians, the right to adequate housing remains unfulfilled. Land conflicts with large corporations rob families of their farmland. Lack of essential infrastructure such as roads, schools and health centres keep communities from accessing the basic services they need to live secure and dignified lives. Year after year, these communities have joined together in peaceful demonstrations to call on authorities to ensure that these fundamental rights to life and livelihood are respected.

31 July 2020

Today, Cambodian plaintiffs representing more than 700 farming families won a landmark appeal allowing them to move forward with their class action against Asia’s largest sugar producer, Mitr Phol.

The transboundary class action Hoy Mai & Others vs. Mitr Phol Co. Ltd. is the first of its kind in Southeast Asia. It was filed under Thai laws permitting a class action to be brought by foreign plaintiffs for abuses committed by a Thai company overseas.

31 July 2020

We, the undersigned youths, civil society groups and grassroots communities, are very concerned by the Royal Government of Cambodia granting Koh Kong S.E.Z Col, Ltd, a company publicly known as being owned by Ly Yong Phat – a powerful tycoon widely known for his involvement in human rights abuses, land rights violations and the destruction of natural resources – the license to develop Koh Kong Krao island in Koh Kong province. The authorization given to this company will potentially be a serious threat to natural resources on the island and biodiversity in the sea, including deforestation, wildlife extinction, illegal buildings constructed on the beach, water pollution in the sea, loss natural beauty of the island and loss the benefit for Cambodian people, etc.

For example, in the case on Koh Rong Samloem island, there is illegal construction on the beach land and polluted water draining into the sea. Another case is Songsaa island; after the development, most Cambodian people cannot afford to stay on the island, because the price of accommodation is too expensive. Therefore, we are very concerned about the planned development of the island by the company, and call for the government to remove the development license for Koh Kong Krao island from the company and to take all effective measures to preserve the national resources and biodiversity in the sea surrounding the island.

16 July 2020

We read your open letter addressed to our four civil society groups and published on the CMA Facebook page on the night of July 15th.

We respectfully decline your request to change any of the three reports regarding human rights abuses in Cambodia’s microfinance and microloan sector. The information and individual stories in these reports remains accurate. We will continue to protect the privacy of people who have chosen to share their stories with us on condition of anonymity. We encourage you, and all interested parties, to read the reports in full to better understand their purpose, methodology, and findings.

5 May 2020

“The benefits of MFIs are short, but the fear is long.”

Throughout Cambodia’s northwest, widespread microfinance debt is pushing families from their homes to find work across the Thai border. In this briefing paper “Driven Out: A study on MFIs and Cross-Border Migration”, LICADHO focuses on a single village in Banteay Meanchey province to dig deeper into the link between microfinance debt and migration in Cambodia’s borderlands. Through interviews conducted with remaining family members from 30 households, LICADHO’s researchers found that over-indebtedness to microfinance institutions (MFIs) was the primary motivating factor for migration in the village.

“Far too many families have had to leave their homes and their country to repay microfinance institutions,” said LICADHO director Naly Pilorge. “Now, with tens of thousands of former migrant workers unable to work in Thailand due to COVID-19, the government and MFIs must help these borrowers by suspending repayments and returning land titles.”

27 April 2020

The suffering of millions of Cambodians who are facing economic hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic is being amplified by the country’s ongoing over-indebtedness crisis, stemming from more than $10 billion in loans from aggressive microfinance institutions (MFIs). More than two and a half million Cambodians currently hold microloans, with an average loan of more than $3,800 – the largest amount in the world. This puts millions of Cambodians’ livelihoods, health and land tenure security at risk.

The government must ensure that MFIs immediately suspend all loan repayments as well as interest accrual on loans for at least three months and return the millions of land titles currently held as collateral by MFIs to their owners. These actions are necessary to ensure that people are able to survive this crisis without risking their health or homes, and are able to avoid further risky loans that could lead to bonded labour, human trafficking and other human rights abuses.

16 March 2020

Four environmental activists, including Goldman Environmental Prize-winner Ouch Leng, have been released by the Kratie provincial prosecutor after the four men were beaten on Friday by guards of Think Biotech Co, Ltd, a joint Taiwanese-Khmer company repeatedly accused of illegal logging, before being handed over to local authorities for more than two days of questioning. Throughout their detention, dozens of local community members, activists and monks peacefully gathered in front of the provincial court to call for their freedom.

Leng was arrested alongside Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) activist Khem Sokhy and Srey Thei as well as forestry activist Man Mat while investigating ongoing reports of illegal logging inside the protected Prey Lang forest. Think Biotech, which has been granted a 34,000-hectare concession, has been repeatedly accused by local communities of illegally harvesting timber within the protected forest as well as resin trees owned by local villagers.

Although none of the activists have been charged, all four remain under investigation as suspects, leaving them vulnerable to being summonsed by the police at any time.

25 February 2020

We, the undersigned, are outraged and appalled at the restrictions placed on hundreds of community members, monks and environmental activists who were prevented by authorities from entering parts of Prey Lang protected area over the weekend. The Ministry of Environment’s use of masked armed rangers to prevent members of the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) from conducting an annual tree-blessing ceremony in the forest is an indefensible restriction on the community’s freedom of movement and harms conservation efforts in the forest.

The PLCN has proved itself to be the most effective and courageous advocate and monitor of the Prey Lang forest over the past 20 years. The group is made up of community members whose lives and livelihoods are intertwined with the forest, and they require unhindered access to the area in order to protect it. Despite the community group taking the courteous step of informing authorities of the intent to hold an annual ceremony inside the forest, officials from the Ministry of Environment blocked members from entering the forest without providing proper legal justification.

6 January 2020

The Appeal Court denied bail for Tbong Khmum community representative Phon Chhoeun in Phnom Penh this afternoon. Chhoeun was arrested in October alongside fellow community representative Sam Sang and faces multiple charges related to a land dispute between Chinese rubber company Harmony Win Investment and several communities in Dambae district, Tbong Khmum province.

In October, villagers in Dambae marched to protest the two representatives’ arrest and were blocked by security forces from observing the initial court process at Tbong Khmum Provincial Court. They were also prevented from observing an ongoing civil case filed by Harmony Win Investment seeking to deny the villagers access to their communal forest land.

More than 600 families who have relied on the land for housing and farming have been affected by the dispute, which has been ongoing since 2012. As recently as last month, Harmony Win Investment representatives brought in multiple tractors to clear the disputed land and were accompanied by approximately 30 soldiers and police. Villagers have continued to call for local and national authorities to resolve the conflict.

1 December 2019

To mark International Human Rights Day on December 10 2019, LICADHO is publishing summaries of major events and human rights abuses spanning the last decade. Each day will feature a new year, starting on December 1 with a summary of events in 2010 and culminating on December 10 with a look back at 2019.