UN Agency To Prioritise Development Areas In Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, Jan 22 (Bernama) -- The Cambodian government has said that its development partner, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is planning to prioritise five areas for development projects in the country from 2011 to 2015, China's Xinhua news agency reported.

A statement released by the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) on Friday, said government officials from various institutions had held a meeting with their development partner UNDP to review the implementation of projects assisted by the UNDP in 2009 and the ongoing projects for years ahead.

The statement said the meeting was chaired by Keat Chhon, deputy prime minister and minister of the economy and finance, and also the first vice chairman of the CDC.

From 2006 through 2010, the UNDP were focusing on governance; promotion of human rights protection, agriculture and poverty in rural area; capacity building and human resource development; and national development plan.

UNDP has assisted Cambodia between 80 million and US$120 million a year.

UN Envoy Wants Cooperation on Rights

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
20 January 2010

UN human rights envoy Surya Prasad Subedi on Wednesday encouraged Cambodia’s leading rights organizations to establish better cooperation with the government in an effort to improve the country’s rights situation.

“We support a cooperation mechanism between the government and non-governmental organizations,” said Ou Virak, head of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights. “It is very important to promote and protect human rights and to reduce the tension between the government and non-governmental organizations.”

The government has a prickly relationship with many rights groups, seeing them as critical naysayers aligned with the opposition.

Rights groups have been sharply critical of the government’s record of rights violations, such as forced evictions, arrests of protesters and threats against rights leaders.

Subedi, the UN’s special rapporteur for human rights in Cambodian, arrived Monday on a two-week mission.

In a meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen Tuesday, Subedi suggested similar cooperation, according to Om Yentieng, head of the government’s human rights committee.

New Criminal Law Worries Rights Groups

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington
12 November 2007

Cambodian rights groups are concerned a new criminal law gives more power to law enforcement without making them understand human rights protection, Sok Samoeun, a legal expert at the Camboda Defenders Project, said Monday.

Wider powers without this understanding, of the law or the human rights, could lead to abuse, he said, as a guest on "Hello VOA."

Better, clear training and understanding of civic freedoms need to be instituted in law enforcement to prevent rights violations of the people, he said.

The new law meanwhile nullifies some clauses of the old law that ensured effective evidence was introduced into the court.

Under the new law, a judge has more power based on initial reports that is not open to the former line of questioning.

Under the old law, evidence collected through illegal means was not considered valid. But the new law does not cover this, he said.

Without independent judges or more training, false evidence can more easily enter a case, Sok Samoeun said, leading to injustices.