LIBRARY

28 February 2017

On 10 July, 2016, prominent political analyst Kem Ley was shot dead in the middle of Phnom Penh. His murder sent shockwaves across Cambodia, and his funeral saw hundreds of thousands of Cambodians take to the street in numbers not seen since the 2013 elections to accompany his body from the capital city to his home village in Takeo province.

His shocking murder took place amid mounting political tensions. Elections are set for 2017 and 2018, and throughout the year the Cambodian government appeared increasingly determined to shut down civil and political dissent through use of force, legal attacks and a legislative assault before the country goes to the polls. By July, there were 29 documented political prisoners in Cambodia’s jails. At the end of the year, 27 remain imprisoned still.

2 December 2016

On the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, LICADHO publishes its report “Built on Slavery: Debt Bondage and Child Labour in Cambodia’s Brick Factories” which presents evidence of the widespread use of contemporary forms of slavery in Cambodia’s brick manufacturing industry. It finds that despite the existence of comprehensive and long-standing legislation criminalizing the use of debt bondage and prohibiting child labour, competent authorities are making no efforts to eradicate them and are in fact enabling their survival.

28 November 2016

A year ago, to mark the 2015 16 Days Against Gender Based Violence campaign, LICADHO published a report Getting Away With It: The Treatment of Rape in Cambodia’s Justice System. The report was based on cases investigated by LICADHO in 2012, 2013 and 2014 and found that there were grave and systemic flaws in how rape cases are prosecuted in Cambodia and as a result, a disturbingly low number of convictions. There were several reasons for this: the extensive use of financial compensation to settle cases, widespread corruption amongst the police and the judiciary, poor understanding and application of the law by judges, and the prevalence of discriminatory attitudes towards women.

31 October 2016

We, the undersigned civil society organizations, write to His Excellency Mr. Suy Sem, the Minister of Mines and Energy, to request clarification regarding sand exported overseas by Cambodia from 2007 to 2015. A Ministry spokesman has been quoted as saying that Cambodia’s global sand exports amounted to just over 17 million tons between 2007 and 2015. However, the only official export data issued to date by the Cambodian government in relation to sand exports, from the Ministry of Commerce, only discloses sand exports to Singapore for the same period, totaling about 2.8 million tons. The Cambodian government is yet to explain to which other countries it is exporting sand to, or at what price this sand is being sold for.

31 August 2016

Under the shadow of approaching commune and national elections set for 2017 and 2018, the first six months of 2016 saw the Cambodian government engage with a campaign to systematically shut down processes of democratic expression and ways to express dissent.

18 August 2016

We, the undersigned international, regional, and Cambodian non-governmental organizations, urge your delegation to support the adoption of a resolution addressing Cambodia's gravely deteriorating human rights situation at the 33rd session of the Human Rights Council.

This resolution should highlight and condemn the ongoing and systematic human rights violations in the country and impunity for their perpetrators; build on the concerns expressed by a number of States at the Council's 32nd session; and urge the Cambodian Government to urgently take corrective action to preserve the legacy of the Paris Peace Agreements, ahead of their 25th anniversary and of key municipal and general elections.

29 April 2016

Over the past nine months, members, supporters, and elected representatives of Cambodia’s main opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), as well as the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), have faced increasing harassment, attacks, arbitrary arrests, and imprisonment.

31 March 2016

Behind a façade of “technical” intent, the new Law on Telecommunications (Telecoms Law) poses a severe threat to freedom of expression in Cambodia, targeting not only online public expression but also any private communications made using telecommunications devices.

In a briefing paper released today, LICADHO analyses the law’s most egregious provisions – which, among others, allow the government to secretly intrude into the private lives of individuals, destroy evidence before criminal trials, and seize control of the entire telecoms industry if arbitrarily deemed warranted. Its excessive measures, particularly those creating new criminal offenses, reveal the true intent of the law: to intimidate individuals, punish the exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms and quash individual and group dissent.

7 March 2016

Tomorrow is International Women’s Day. To mark the event LICADHO is releasing a new audio book and summary audio clip titled Getting Away With It: The Treatment of Rape in Cambodia’s Justice System. Both the book and the summary present evidence of the immense failure of the Cambodian justice system to properly investigate and prosecute cases of rape involving women and children. They provide details of multiple systemic flaws – corruption, discriminatory attitudes towards women and girls, misinterpretation of the law, and lack of resources – which, together, mean that many perpetrators of rape receive only very lenient punishment or go completely unpunished.

29 February 2016

In 2015 Cambodia’s democratic space for civil society was dealt a series of critical blows as the government tightened its control through legislation and politicized courts.

25 January 2016

We, the undersigned Cambodian civil society groups, urge US Secretary of State John F. Kerry to call on the Royal Government of Cambodia to commit to upholding human rights and democratic obligations as a condition of strong and prosperous relations with the United States of America. During the Secretary of State's visit to Phnom Penh ahead of the US-ASEAN special summit at Sunnylands we request him to consider the numerous actions of the Cambodian government that clash with the fundamental values of the United States of America and are harmful to the rights of Cambodian citizens and the economic growth of Cambodia.

9 December 2015

This briefing paper documents a non-exhaustive list of attacks and threats against human rights defenders in 2013 and 2014, as well as three key trends that emerged over the two years: an escalation in state-sponsored violence, the prevalence of human rights defenders silenced by the criminal justice system, and finally, the resistance and resilience shown by Cambodian human rights defenders as they continued to, and intensified, their calls for a more just Cambodia.

29 November 2015

LICADHO is publishing a new report Getting Away With It: The Treatment of Rape in Cambodia’s Justice System. The report presents evidence of the immense failure of the Cambodian justice system to properly investigate and prosecute cases of rape involving women and children. It provides details of multiple systemic flaws – corruption, discriminatory attitudes towards women and girls, misinterpretation of the law, and lack of resources – which, together, mean that many perpetrators of rape receive only very lenient punishment or go completely unpunished.

24 June 2015

In March 2003, the Cambodian government unveiled a potentially progressive policy with the aim of transferring land to landless and poor Cambodians – Social Land Concessions (SLCs). However, some of the first SLCs were implemented with a total disregard for the legal framework and failed miserably. The Land Allocation for Social and Economic Development (LASED) project was meant to prove that SLCs could contribute to reducing rural poverty by transferring land to landless Cambodians for residential and farming purposes.

17 June 2015

The draft Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations (LANGO) obtained in June 2015 will establish mandatory registration for all domestic and international associations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), criminalizing all activities by unregistered membership organizations. The requirement to register appears all encompassing and could be interpreted to apply to all organizations from grassroots groups and community based organisations up to major international organizations. Mandatory registration could have a particularly severe impact on the freedom of association of grassroots groups and community based organizations.

This memo is a specific breakdown of the key provisions within the approved draft law that have worsened since the December 2011 draft, and the potential impacts on groups operating in Cambodia.

26 May 2015

In recent years considerable resources have been spent on developing guidelines on the implementation of non-custodial sentencing alternatives in Cambodia, yet such alternatives are rarely considered, even for obvious priority groups such as pregnant women and mothers with young children.

Similarly, judges are required to consider the personal circumstances of a suspect before ordering pre-trial detention, including whether they are pregnant or have young children. However, in practice, Cambodia’s criminal justice system is focused almost entirely on incarceration for pre-trial detainees.

With the publication of this report, LICADHO aims to increase awareness of the situation of children of prisoners in Cambodia and remind judges and prosecutors of their responsibility to properly comply with existing legal procedures in order to reduce unnecessary, harmful detention.

17 May 2015

Cambodia is now experiencing a boom in web connectivity driven by the increasing availability of cheap web-enabled smartphones and extensive mobile networks. As a result, citizens have been empowered by the ability of bloggers, monks, community activists, and opposition politicians to circumvent government media controls and disseminate information about important issues such as land-grabs, police violence, impunity, corruption, and deforestation, to name but a few.

On World Information Society Day, LICADHO releases its report “Going Offline? The Threat to Cambodia’s Newfound Internet Freedoms,” describing the vital importance of the Internet for freedom of expression in Cambodia and the imminent threat that this last bastion for independent voices now faces.

3 March 2015

As Cambodia prepares for the Human Rights Committee to consider the country’s second State Party Report, we must first note the political environment that currently exists. Corruption remains rampant and violence against government critics is systematic. The nation’s politically influenced justice system continues to prosecute more government opponents, while State actors and well-connected individuals continue to enjoy impunity. Activists and journalists have been murdered and the authorities have consistently failed to properly investigate these crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice.

The government’s use of the criminal justice system to carry out its political agenda has become increasingly brazen and the system of justice applied to land rights, land concessions, and land confiscation is blatantly skewed. In addition, human rights defenders are targeted for harassment, threats, unjustified criminal charges and violence.

15 February 2015

As of November 2014 there were 40 children between the ages of one month and almost four years living with their mothers in the Cambodian prisons monitored by LICADHO. Approximately half of them were born in prison and have never experienced life beyond the prison walls. Whilst there have been few detailed studies assessing the long-term impact of prison life on a child’s development, it is clear that for some children early life behind bars can have devastating physical and psychological consequences and life in Cambodian prisons is no exception.

This report is the second in a series of case studies issued by LICADHO which endeavor to bridge the gap in knowledge about young children in Cambodian prisons. The first report detailed the experiences of one boy, Sokun, who lived with his incarcerated mother in Phnom Penh’s Correctional Center 2 (CC2) prison until he was six years and ten months old. The report concluded that for Sokun, the positive opportunity to bond with his mother may have outweighed some of the negative experiences of prison life, but that Cambodian authorities should have done much more to ensure special measures were in place to protect him from other harmful impacts.

12 February 2015

January 2014 started bloody and violent as thousands of mixed security forces mobilized to ruthlessly suppress a global strike by garment workers for a rise in minimum wage as well as putting an end to the three-week long post-election protest by the opposition. LICADHO monitors witnessed security forces firing live ammunition and grenades directly at crowds of civilians near the Canadia Industrial Area on Veng Sreng road, Phnom Penh, leading to four shot dead, one disappearance of a 15 year old boy, Khem Sophath, and 38 others hospitalized in the worst state violence to hit Cambodia in over a decade.Following the events that occurred on Veng Sreng road, the ruling party continued a policy of systematically repressing civil society as security forces continued to operate with impunity against peaceful protests, access to public spaces such as Freedom Park were shutdown, numerous human rights activists were arrested and tried on spurious charges, and laws designed to curtail freedom of assembly and expression continued to be drafted.