LIBRARY

12 November 2021

The Phnom Penh Appeal Court this morning upheld the convictions of activists Rong Chhun, Sar Kanika and Ton Nimol and suspended parts of their sentences. The three activists were convicted of incitement under Articles 494 and 495 of the Criminal Code by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on 18 August 2021 for exercising their rights to freedom of expression.

Chhun must serve 15 months and 11 days in prison, with the remainder of his two-year sentence suspended by the appeal court. Kanika must serve 15 months and 5 days in prison and Nimol must serve 14 months and 24 days in prison, with the remainder of their 20-month sentences suspended. Chhun and Kanika have already spent more than 15 months in prison, while Nimol has been detained for over 12 months. They will remain under probation for three years following their release, and subject to a host of restrictive conditions such as not associating with each other and informing a prosecutor of any change of address or occupation under Articles 119 and 120.

The appeal court also upheld the order for the three activists to each pay 2 million riel ($500) in fines, and jointly pay 400 million riel ($100,000) in damages, both of which are unusually high amounts.

10 June 2021

We, as representatives of trade union confederations, federations, associations and civil society organisations working to promote human and labour rights in the Kingdom of Cambodia are extremely disappointed with attempts to dissolve trade union leadership and the plans to systematically, unreasonably and unacceptably lay off workers during the COVID-19 crisis.

On 18 April 2021, representatives of NagaWorld Limited announced the plan to lay off 1,329 of the more than 8,000 workers at the company claiming reasons related to the COVID-19 crisis. At the end of April, company representatives confirmed that for those workers to be laid off, the company would contact each of them individually, as well as call them for a personal meeting on company premises.

22 January 2021

More than 70 workers and union leaders gathered outside Phnom Penh’s Wat Langka this morning to demand justice for murdered unionist Chea Vichea, who was gunned down in the street 17 years ago today. The peaceful Buddhist ceremony was shadowed by more than 60 uniformed and plain-clothes police and security forces.

Speaking at the ceremony, Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association president Vorn Pao called for further investigation into the union leader’s murder, as well as demanding justice for those still facing harassment or imprisoned unjustly. Although two innocent men, Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeurn, were falsely convicted and imprisoned for five years before their sentences were overturned, Vichea’s real killers have never been brought to justice.

Almost two decades after Vichea, the leader of the Free Trade Union of the Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia, was killed, Cambodia’s pro-worker union leaders continue to face threats to their lives. In February last year, a deputy union leader at a Phnom Penh garment factory was left seriously injured after three masked men on a motorbike beat him on the head with a steel pipe outside his workplace. As in the case of Vichea’s murder, the perpetrators were never arrested.

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.

10 December 2020

Family members of at least five imprisoned human rights defenders called for their loved ones’ release today, as communities across Cambodia were forced to turn to social media to celebrate Human Rights Day. With a number of local authorities refusing to allow grassroots communities to gather together to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, citing the threat of a potential COVID-19 outbreak, more than two dozen communities chose instead to launch social media campaigns calling for their fundamental freedoms to be respected.

For the first time in 27 years, Cambodians were unable to celebrate human rights day as a public holiday after the government stripped it from the calendar last year. Despite this, dozens of communities across the country organised events bringing together hundreds of farmers, workers and grassroots groups to speak out about land grabbing, workers’ rights and ongoing human rights violations facing their communities. With Cambodia experiencing its first case of COVID-19 community transmission barely two weeks before the planned celebrations, many groups turned to social media, promising an online campaign stretching until December 25. A handful of people from one community in Koh Kong province who launched their digital campaign by filming themselves posing with a banner were observed by a large group of local police.

3 August 2020

We, the undersigned civil society groups, strongly condemn the nighttime arrest of Rong Chhun and call on the Royal Government of Cambodia and the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to immediately drop all charges against the union leader and release him from pre-trial detention.

Cambodian Confederation of Unions president Rong Chhun was arrested by police at his home late on Friday night after the government’s Cambodia Border Affairs Committee publicly called on authorities to take action against the unionist for his comments following a visit to the Cambodia-Vietnam border on July 20. Chhun – a member of the non-governmental Cambodia Watchdog Council – had given a radio interview just hours before his arrest denying that he had been spreading false information about alleged community land loss along the border in a public statement the week before.

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.

30 June 2020

Tens of thousands of garment workers in Cambodia will struggle to repay microfinance debts during work stoppages and factory suspensions caused by COVID-19, creating a mounting human rights crisis as they struggle to feed their families and hold onto their land under immense pressure from microfinance institutions (MFIs). Without immediate debt relief, many of these workers will resort to selling their land or their homes, eating less food or taking out even more loans to repay their debts.

In Worked to Debt, a joint briefing paper between the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions (CATU), the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights (CENTRAL) and the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO), researchers surveyed more than 150 workers – most of them women – from three factories in Phnom Penh and Kampong Chhnang to investigate how workers were coping with their debts as hundreds of factories suspended operations as a result of the global pandemic.

10 May 2020

Six members of Cambodian youth group Khmer Thavrak including human rights activist Hun Vannak were arrested in Battambang last night while returning from a peaceful protest calling on banks and microfinance institutions (MFIs) to suspend loan repayments amid the economic crisis caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Five monks who joined the protest were also threatened with expulsion from their pagodas unless they thumb-printed an agreement pledging to stop their activism on behalf of Cambodian borrowers.

22 January 2020

Around 100 people including unionists, family members and civil society representatives called on authorities to reopen the investigation into the unsolved murder of trade union leader Chea Vichea during a ceremony marking 16 years since the union leader was shot outside Wat Langka in central Phnom Penh.

Standing just metres away from the site of the shooting, trade union leaders also urged workers across the country to continue Vichea’s struggle for workers’ rights and warned that the looming withdrawal of the Everything But Arms trade agreement with the European Union could have devastating consequences for workers and their families. The peaceful Buddhist ceremony took place under surveillance by more than 60 police, plainclothes officers and Daun Penh security guards.

10 January 2020

NagaWorld has reinstated suspended union president Chhim Sithar after a two-day strike that gathered thousands of workers in front of the central Phnom Penh casino. NagaWorld representatives also told the assembled workers this evening that the company would be raising workers’ salaries after further negotiation. Workers are expected to return to work tomorrow.

The agreement came after union officials including Chhim Sithar, who was indefinitely suspended with pay in September 2019 while campaigning for better wages and working conditions, met this afternoon with NagaWorld representatives and senior officials from the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training to negotiate a settlement.

9 January 2020

More than 2,000 workers from NagaWorld went on strike and peacefully assembled near the Malaysian-owned casino in central Phnom Penh this morning to protest the indefinite suspension of union leader Chhim Sithar. Workers called for an end to the ongoing harassment of union members and for a living wage for workers, while dozens of police and private security forces looked on.

Chhim Sithar, president of the Labour Rights Supported Union of Khmer Workers at NagaWorld, was suspended with pay in September 2019 while campaigning for a living wage for the thousands of workers employed in the casino complex. In June, nearly 4,000 workers signed a petition demanding a wage increase to cover the rising cost of living in the capital.

Although Sithar joined the strike and met with NagaWorld representatives and local authorities in Chamkarmon District this afternoon, company representatives have failed to reach an agreement with the workers, who said the strike will continue.

8 August 2019

The average size of a microloan in Cambodia is now the highest in the world. Many farmers are trapped in a cycle of debt, forced to get larger and larger loans to survive. Watch the video below to learn one man's story.

30 January 2019

Cambodia’s human rights record comes under review at the UN Human Rights Council today as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process.

LICADHO contributed to two joint submissions with the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Forum-Asia which catalogue state repression of human rights defenders, media and civil society, as well as the human cost of rampant land grabbing.

2 May 2018

Close to a thousand workers and trades unionists celebrated International Labour Day around Cambodia on 1 May 2018 despite restrictions on public gatherings and a ban on the traditionally held march in the capital.

A large area around the National Assembly was cordoned by mixed police forces and the rally in the capital was closely monitored.

Other events in Cambodian provinces were also low key and closely watched by authorities.

1 May 2018

Workers and trade unions celebrated International Labour Day around Cambodia today despite restrictions on public gatherings and a ban on the traditionally held march in the capital. A large area around the National Assembly was cordoned off and guarded by mixed police forces.

A far smaller group than previous years rallied outside the Council for the Development of Cambodia under close surveillance from security forces. More than 600 workers, mainly from the garment and construction industry, held placards calling for workers rights, an end to harassment of trades unions and increased building site safety. Citing security concerns, Phnom Penh Municipality denied the organisers, the Cambodian Labour Confederation (CLC) and their members, the right to march to the National Assembly.

Instead CLC union leaders delivered speeches on the theme of "Challenges of Trade Union Law Enforcement" calling for protection of workers’ rights and an end to union harassment. Several other smaller trades union groups delivered petitions to the Ministry of Labour and the National Assembly. Other events took place around the country in Ratanakiri, Kampot, Kampong Speu and Kampong Chhnang.

3 July 2017

As Cambodia’s human rights situation continues to backslide, exposing and speaking out against state-perpetrated abuses is ever more crucial. In the last two years, however, human rights defenders and other critical or independent voices have been among the main victims of Cambodia’s fractious political situation.

In this latest in a series of briefing papers, LICADHO sets out threats facing those who stand up for human rights in today’s Cambodia. Long-standing tactics used to silence human rights defenders – judicial harassment by a politicized court system; state-sponsored violence; and intolerance of peaceful protest – have been reinforced by new incapacitating laws and targeted digital surveillance. Although the examples presented in this paper are by no means exhaustive, taken together they provide a snapshot into the kinds of abuses that human rights defenders have been routinely subjected to in Cambodia over the last two years.

2 May 2017

The photo album covers the 2017 International Labour Day celebration in Phnom Penh. More than 1,500 workers and activists gathered in central Phnom Penh, facing barricades and mixed police armed with shields, batons and other weapons. After two hours of negotiations, the group of workers stood their ground and rallied for labour rights, freedom of association, the living wage and better working conditions.

1 May 2017

This morning a mixed group of over 1500 trade unionists, workers, farmers, tuk tuk drivers and youths rallied in central Phnom Penh to celebrate International Labour Day and call for respect for workers’ rights, freedom of association, freedom of expression and the living wage.

The peaceful gathering was met with heavy deployments of para-police and riot police carrying batons and tear gas guns. The rally was obstructed by barricades and cordons of mixed forces for over two hours before eventually being permitted to march a short distance towards the National Assembly before again being blocked and prevented from marching the final 200 metres.

Representatives of the gathered groups delivered speeches in which they publicly stated their demands before submitting a petition to a representative of the National Assembly. Earlier in the rally, the authorities attempted to prevent speakers from using microphones. Many participants wore red headbands and emblazoned with the slogan “Our Rights” while others carried banners demanding respect for their rights.

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.