LIBRARY

1 November 2013

For three days from October 23-25, 2013, over 25,000 people peacefully gathered from across Cambodia in the capital city to rally for political change. The National Rescue Party (CNRP) leaders collected over 2.3 million thumbprints calling for an independent investigation into July’s election irregularities and for election reform. Marking the 22nd anniversary of the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, CNRP leaders and supporters successfully delivered this petition to eight embassies and the UN, requesting signatories to uphold their promise to help ensure democracy and respect for human rights in Cambodia.

23 October 2013

From October 23 to 25, the Cambodian National Rescue Party will conduct its second mass protest following the 2013 National Election, which many election observers have condemned as being marred with irregularities and fraud. We will update information on unfolding event as-it-happens.

15 October 2013

In Cambodia today there are many young children living in prison with their mothers 1 yet there is little understanding amongst authorities and society at large of the short and long term impact of prison life on children. In this, Cambodia is not alone – to date there are only a few studies of the effects on children who spend their early years behind bars.

Prisoners are among the most marginalized groups in any society, and Cambodia is no different. They are cut off from society, both physically and emotionally. This is especially devastating for children who are not prisoners but are too often treated as such. The reality of Cambodian prisons is harsh for anyone, but for a child it can be devastating.

25 September 2013

We, the undersigned organisations, welcome the long overdue decision made by the Supreme Court this afternoon to free Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun and drop all charges against them .

25 September 2013

Gravely concerned at the Cambodian authorities’ repeated use of excessive force to prevent and suppress the people’s exercise of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression, the undersigned non-governmental organizations call on the Cambodian and foreign governments to take immediate action to prevent the human rights situation from deteriorating further.

16 September 2013

We, the undersigned organizations, condemn in the strongest terms the indiscriminate police brutality last night that left one young person dead and several more injured when armed forces were given the green light to use live ammunition in a crowd of commuters, local residents and demonstrators.
After a largely peaceful day of demonstrations marking the first day of a planned three-day protest by opposition party CNRP, tensions escalated late on Sunday night. Barbed wire barricades had cut off major arteries of the city throughout the day, resulting in traffic chaos at key locations in the capital.

5 September 2013

As the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) prepares to hold a peaceful “meditative” assembly on 7 September 2013 to demand an independent investigation into what it alleges are irregularities, including fraud, around the national election of 28 July, the undersigned non-governmental organizations and civil society groups make the following statement.

4 September 2013

Today marks one year of detention since the arrest of Boeung Kak activist and prisoner of conscience Yorm Bopha. This video tells her story, from her strong stance in support of detained community members to her arrest and groundless conviction.

24 August 2013

This report compiles key observations from 173 staff and partners who visited over 100 polling stations. There are 19,009 polling stations in Cambodia. As such, this report is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis of election day irregularities, but instead offers a snapshot revealing the need for further investigation.

Overall, observers witnessed serious discrepancies in an alarming percentage of the stations visited. The issues can be grouped into three main areas: voter roll irregularities, including inexplicably missing names and similar denials of the right to vote; indications of intentional fraud or vote rigging; and intimidation or harassment.

19 August 2013

The Cambodian Community Legal Education Center (CLEC) and Cambodian League for the Promotion & Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) call on the authorities to drop all charges against students Tut Chanpanha and Sok Dalis. We similarly call for charges against small shop owner Lim Lypaeung and Hiv Borin to be dropped.

7 August 2013

We, the undersigned civil society groups, urge Metfone, an Internet service provider (ISP) registered and operating in Cambodia, to issue a full explanation of today’s temporary blocking of Facebook, as well as the ongoing unavailability of the Ki-Media website.

Earlier this morning, at about 9 AM, Metfone users began to report that they were denied access to Facebook. The outage lasted for more than three hours.

23 July 2013

The Guardian newspaper recently ran a damning expose of child labor on the KSL Group sugar plantations in Cambodia that supply the sugar giant Tate & Lyle Sugars. Rather than acting quickly to address the abuses, the companies seem to have resorted to a strategy of denial and legal bullying in an attempt to defend their tarnished reputations.

7 July 2013

We, the staff and members of the civil society groups listed, and our partners, families and friends, who are registered voters throughout Cambodia, will only consider voting for members of parliament of all political parties that keep the media free at all times.

3 July 2013

In the wake of another two days of protests by members of the Boeung Kak community in Phnom Penh, who are demanding just resolution to a long-standing land conflict affecting their community before the national election on 28 July, we the undersigned non-governmental organizations (NGOs) wish to condemn the use of disproportionate force against protesters by the municipal police and other security forces. These protests are just the latest in a series of protests which have resulted in the use of violence or disproportionate force against protesters calling for an end to land disputes.

1 July 2013

We, the undersigned civil society organizations, welcome the government’s decision to rescind shocking measures issued last week to censor Cambodia’s local news media in the final weeks before the July 28 National Assembly elections, and condemn the decision ever to implement such measures. We remain deeply concerned about an order to ban foreign news reporting of election polling which will come into force five days before the vote.

We condemn this ban in the strongest possible terms and urge the government to remove all restrictions on the news media during this critical pre-election period. We also call for the government to guarantee that it will not repeat its attempts to censor the airwaves or any other media, including social media on the internet.

28 June 2013

The government has imposed shocking and expansive measures to censor Cambodia’s local news media ahead of July 28 elections, banning FM radio stations from rebroadcasting “foreignbased programs” in Khmer and from reporting on foreigners who are campaigning “to support or oppose” political parties or candidates.

The ban will stay in place through the July 28 National Assembly election day.

25 June 2013

Cambodian Community Legal Education Center (CLEC) and Cambodian League for the Promotion & Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) welcome the conviction of former Bavet governor Chhouk Bandith for shooting three garment workers last year, but condemn the light sentence – one-and-a-half years in prison – for actions that amounted an attempted triple-homicide.

The sentence is little more than a slap on the wrist, and is emblematic of Cambodia’s pervasive culture of impunity for the well-connected elite.

18 June 2013

Imprisoned Boeung Kak Lake land activist Yorm Bopha filed an appeal with the Supreme Court on June 17, 2013, in a bid to overturn or reduce her two-year prison sentence. She was convicted for her alleged involvement in a physical assault, but it is widely believed that the charges came in retaliation for her land rights activism.

Bopha was arrested in September 2012 and convicted of “intentional violence” in December; she was originally sentenced to three years imprisonment. The Court of Appeal suspended one year of her sentence on Friday, June 14, meaning she is scheduled for release in September 2014. Both Bopha’s original trial and her appeal were characterized by a stunning lack of evidence

10 June 2013

Cambodia’s National Assembly – its key legislative organ – has been thrust into a Constitutional crisis less than two months before the country’s national elections. Last week, the National Assembly’s Permanent Committee, which is comprised entirely of ruling Cambodia People’s Party members, stripped all 29 opposition party members of their parliamentary status. Because this expulsion took place within 6 months of a national election, the seats left empty by the purged parliamentarians were effectively terminated and will remain so under until after the election.

10 June 2013

On the morning of June 9, 2013, a series of well-organized protests occurred throughout Cambodia, at which participants denounced an alleged speech given by opposition party leader Kem Sokha. The Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) leader allegedly claimed that Khmer Rouge S-21 prison was faked by the Vietnamese. These gatherings followed weeks of relentless attacks on Kem Sokha by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) – mostly coming via CPP-dominated TV stations. Kem Sokha denies the accusation.