Authorities have arrested a total of 19 people and burned down homes as a land dispute near an Oddar Meanchey rubber plantation escalates, according to residents and a human rights group.
Indigenous Bunong families from Mondulkiri are petitioning government institutions about 255 hectares of community land transferred to a tycoon amid nationwide state-land privatizations.
Nearly 100 families living near Takhmao city are facing eviction as authorities pledge to restore the heavily-polluted river running next to their homes in a project linked to a real estate company with connections to the prime minister’s family.
A Kandal court acquitted nine airport protesters who were charged with multiple felonies for alleged violence during protests, more than a year after they were arrested and bailed.
About 300 people from three provinces are urging three ministries and the Prime Minister’s cabinet to speed up solutions for their land disputes that have dragged out for more than a decade.
Siem Reap families set up camp on disputed land this week in protest of their former farms being used to resettle Angkor park evictees, but have left under threat from authorities, the residents said.
Jailed forest activist Chorn Phalla’s wife said Phalla was getting sick in prison and asked for his release, though a prison official disputed the account saying there were doctors inside and the activist was fine.
About 50 people gathered in a circle with offerings of fruit, flowers and a pig’s head Wednesday as they burned incense sticks and shouted misfortunes they wish would befall the mix of tycoons and government-connected elites who have increasingly gobbled up portions of the lake.
Hundreds of residents in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh protested this week over displacement due to an Angkor resettlement plan, the sand-filling of Boeng Tamok lake, and a road expansion project in the capital’s Russei Keo.
Hundreds of hectares in Mondulkiri were sold to a major tycoon’s family for as low as 600 riel per square meter, a government document suggests, and is facing protests from existing residents.
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