Source: CAPJ
The following is a statement from the Cambodian Association for the Protection of Journalists (CAPJ), a SEAPA partner based in Phnom Penh:
The Cambodian Association for the Protection of Journalists (CAPJ) expresses its concern about the Cambodian government's plan to regulate the Internet through the enactment of a law by late 2009.
CAPJ appeals to the government to put the plan on hold temporarily and that a survey be conducted instead.
CAPJ observed that since the Internet became available in 1997, it has been serving the public well despite the absence of laws governing it. Furthermore, no major incidents involving the Internet which caused negative consequences to Cambodian society has taken place. Actually, the public has already grown accustomed to this new technology and has been enjoying freedom to utilize this latest electronic tool. With the prospect of the new regulation, CAPJ President Um Sarin said: "It seems the government is applying autocratic rules to control everything aboutcommunication. We worry that this law would be used as a tool to control and clamp down on bloggers who harshly criticize the government and we appeal for the government to reconsider its current plan."
CAPJ will closely watch this situation and at the same time invite donor countries as well as the local and international human rights NGOs to take appropriate action should the Cambodia government pushes through with this new regulation.
CAPJ Secretariat
For more information, contact:
Um Sarin (umsarin59@yahoo.com)
Duong Hak Samrithy (duonghak.samrithy27@gmail.com)
Government attempts to regulate the Internet
The Cambodian Association for the Protection of Journalists (CAPJ) expresses its concern about the Cambodian government's plan to regulate the Internet through the enactment of a law by late 2009.
CAPJ appeals to the government to put the plan on hold temporarily and that a survey be conducted instead.
CAPJ observed that since the Internet became available in 1997, it has been serving the public well despite the absence of laws governing it. Furthermore, no major incidents involving the Internet which caused negative consequences to Cambodian society has taken place. Actually, the public has already grown accustomed to this new technology and has been enjoying freedom to utilize this latest electronic tool. With the prospect of the new regulation, CAPJ President Um Sarin said: "It seems the government is applying autocratic rules to control everything aboutcommunication. We worry that this law would be used as a tool to control and clamp down on bloggers who harshly criticize the government and we appeal for the government to reconsider its current plan."
CAPJ will closely watch this situation and at the same time invite donor countries as well as the local and international human rights NGOs to take appropriate action should the Cambodia government pushes through with this new regulation.
CAPJ Secretariat
For more information, contact:
Um Sarin (umsarin59@yahoo.com)
Duong Hak Samrithy (duonghak.samrithy27@gmail.com)
9 comments:
Hun Sen Government controls the mass media and, therefore, controls public opinion of the relevant issues that are related to Khmer every day lives. Problems will arise when these powerful cronies, through the mass media, set their agenda.
1. The media may overlook conditions that are detrimental to the relatively Khmer powerless segments of society
2. It diverts people’s attention from what may constitute the most important Khmer social issues
3. Attention may be diverted to specific social instances and away from the real cause of many Khmer social problems
The return of the (abdicated) king ANALYSIS / CAMBODIA
King Sihanouk has sent an `open letter' to the parliaments and governments of Thailand, Vietnam and Laos, calling on them to stop nibbling away the villages, lands, seas and islands belonging to Cambodia
By JULIO A. JELDRES
When King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia abdicated in October 2004, the political elite in Phnom Penh promptly celebrated and felt that at last they were going to be able to continue their activities without the old monarch bothering them through his daily postings on his website condemning the corruption of the elite, the lack of good governance, illegal logging and the dire poverty in which most ordinary Cambodians live.
They hastily passed legislation in the National Assembly proclaiming King Sihanouk ``The King-Father of Independence and National Reconciliation'' together with a budget to enjoy his retirement.
But they were in for a surprise.
The king-father had already planned a retirement which includes making sure that Cambodia's borders remain as they were back in 1969, respected and recognised as they were by most countries, including the United States, with the exception of Thailand, Laos and the then Republic of South Vietnam.
The king-gather, who has been in Beijing since January this year treating a recurrent stomach cancer, has long been concerned by bilateral border agreements signed by the former People's Republic of Kampuchea with Vietnam, when that country's army occupied Cambodia after overthrowing the Pol Pot regime.
He has said that he will never recognise those agreements which are contrary to formal promises made to him by the Vietnamese leadership to respect Cambodia's territorial integrity after the re-unification of South and North Vietnam.
The former monarch says Thailand profited from a treaty it signed with Vietnam in August 1997, delimiting the waters of the Gulf of Thailand, while Cambodia lost some 30,000 square kilometres of its maritime territory.
He also alleges that Thailand took over border areas that were controlled by the Cambodian resistance during Vietnam's occupation of the country.
Laos is alleged by King Sihanouk to have taken parcels of land belonging to Cambodia in the border province of Stung-Treng, preventing the renovation of an old road built during the French Protectorate, which China has agreed to finance.
An ancient Khmer prediction suggested in olden days that the Khmers would have to choose one day between being eaten by the tigers or swallowed by crocodiles.
Following the signing of the Paris Agreements of 1991, many believed that the agreements would end any territorial problems as they were signed by all of Cambodia's neighbours and also because the then State of Cambodia engaged itself to revoke any treaties that were incompatible with Cambodia's sovereignty.
On March 31, six months after his abdication, King Sihanouk began what amounts to a new royal crusade to preserve Cambodia's territorial integrity.
He issued an ``open letter'' to the parliaments and governments of the Kingdom of Thailand, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the DPR of Laos, that called on them to stop nibbling away the villages, lands, seas and islands belonging to Cambodia.
Prime Minister Hun Sen, who maintains close relations with Vietnam, is reported to have been furious with the king's open letter, as he does not wish the special relationship with Vietnam to be disturbed by border issues.
However, following the advice of calmer voices in his cabinet, he hastily decided to follow up one of King Sihanouk's recent suggestions: the establishment of a non-partisan body to tackle the thorny issue of Cambodia's borders.
On May 9, 2005, King Norodom Sihamoni signed a decree establishing the Supreme National Council of Border Affairs, which brings together one representative each of the king, the chairmen of the Senate and National Assembly and of the three political parties sitting in the Cambodian National Assembly.
King Sihanouk's strategy forced the government to tackle an issue that the government did not want to touch. He had successfully used the same tactics to get the succession issue resolved last year, when he suddenly abdicated, leaving the government with no alternative but to hastily pass legislation setting up the Council of the Crown and get a new monarch elected.
But the newly and grandly named Supreme National Council of Border Affairs is a tiger without teeth. Indeed, the royal decree signed by King Sihanouk's son, King Sihamoni, but drafted solely by senior government officials without the participation of the royal palace, does not give the council any real power to solve the border issue but only to research and assess questions pertaining to the land and sea borders of Cambodia, to advise the government, as well as to pay on-spot visits to border areas where incidents may have occurred.
The council is not empowered to negotiate with foreign countries when problems arise in the border areas.
King Sihanouk had planned the activities of the Supreme National Council of Border Affairs with gusto and haste, calling for a meeting of the council the afternoon after his scheduled return to Cambodia, on May 8, immediately after a press conference, the first he would have given in at least five years.
But fate threw his arrangements into chaos. On May 1, Chinese doctors informed the king that the cancer treatment he had been following in Beijing was not working and that it was necessary for the retired monarch to follow a course of chemotherapy. Disappointed but undeterred, the king called a meeting of the Border Council in Beijing. This took place on May 11 and 12 in the Chinese capital but as its deliberations are supposed to remain confidential, not much was known of what transpired at the Beijing meeting.
This was until it was leaked to the press that during the meeting, Princess Norodom Vacheahra, vice president of the border council representing the chairman of the Cambodian National Assembly and half-sister of the king-father, proposed the amendment of the royal decree establishing the council in order to give more power to the council and its president.
Critics of the way the border council was created say that it should have been established by legislation passed by parliament and proclaimed by the king in order to have a legal competence properly recognised and not just by a royal decree. The decree gives the border council president no executive power but holds King Norodom Sihanouk responsible for the country's border disputes. Since the first meeting of the border council and following an appeal by King Sihanouk, volunteers, students and other concerned citizens have been paying visits to the border areas and reporting back to the king-father on their findings.
The former monarch has posted them on his website in Khmer but without the names of the authors in order to protect their identity.
Phnom Penh newspapers have reported that Prime Minister Hun Sen, angered by Princess Vacheahra's draft amendment of the role of the border council, has asked Prince Norodom Ranariddh, chairman of the National Assembly, to replace her with someone who would follow the instructions of the ruling parties and speak the same language at meetings of the council.
It is not known when the next meeting of the border council will take place, and much depends on King Sihanouk's health.
Julio A. Jeldres was private secretary to King Norodom Sihanouk from 1982-1991 and remains his official biographer.
I thought hunkvak wanted to spread more freedom in Cambodia as he promises in the coming year or will he abolishing the freedom from the Cambodian people? Freedom means people learned and knew so much that's why the Commnist hunxen doesn't like it. This means that hunxen will cause another war in Cambodia if he can't dictate the people, and he,hunxen, needs to keep Cambodian poor so he can be dictate them. Anotherhand, Cambodia will not be like China nor vietnam ...will see!!!
Monday, January 12, 2009
Hun Sen has his good logic, but Cambodia will loss its sovereignty
Hun Sen is using a good logic for his personal gains such as power, wealth and self-interest. But his rhetoric is surely deteriorating Cambodia's future freedom and national sovereign integrity.
It is unarguable that January 07 are mixing with freedom from brutality and experiencing foreign invasion over Cambodia.
So, this 30 years from the Khmer Rouge brutality is meaningful for Cambodia because Khmer Rouge is not fearful to Cambodia any more. But what is fearful is that the influence and domination of foreigner VN is still overwhelmingly spreading in Cambodia. No body can deny the eternal relationship of Hun Sen and Vietnam (I mean this because not all CPP's members are agreeing with Hun Sen to bend down before Hanoi by celebrating and valuing this January 07 day).
More than this, Hun Sen is good and he is the spearhead to do whatever he can to divide and split Cambodia society into pieces. His speech likes this is to intentionally divide Cambodian peoples into small groups so that his boss, the VN, can take advantage and take over Cambodia easily, eventually.
In short, all Cambodian political parties should pursue their national interests as their absolutely goal. Hun Sen should not say that unless opposition party can control the government, so that they can eliminate January 07 and to celebrate the day of October 23. Saying this is ignorantly dividing Cambodian people and it is stupidly for a national leader.
When KR regime is totally disappeared and KR trial is ongoing performing, it is truly useless to recognize or celebrate the day of January 07, the foreign invasion in Cambodia. Whatever, they want to legitimize the day of January 07, this day is still not making any good for Cambodia's future freedom and national sovereign integrity.
Only October 23, that all Cambodian political parties shook hand to end the internal civil wars and shouldered to build our nation. Without October 23, how can we have current national constitution, monarchy, foreign aids, and others...?
Someone may argue that without January 07, we don't have October 23, but as you know that argument is just a self-interest rhetoric with short-sighted and puppetic leadership by prostrating the foreigner VN.
KY
Please, don't listen to Ah Pimp-oversea.
Khmer rouge =Hun Sen =Youn slave ,why I left the country that I love like my life but unfortunate I foreseen Hun Sen and khmer rouge definitely are the same ,he won't free you from his Ironic claws .
Folks nothing can't give you free unless you fight for it.
5:32PM mr.or Mrs undersea,you know what it mean, every thing are under is no value so you are one of no value person.
I didn't listen to ah oversea, instead I read what he or she write about. Ah undersea bark over ah oversea while he or she use fake marriage to get to oversea. The undersea like so much of the regime but they all want to go oversea. Actually ah undersea bark so much at ah oversea that they all went to oversea. Without ah oversea, ah undersea would have eat shit, ah undersea hate so much of ah oversea but prefer ah oversea dollars. Ah undersea are nothing but a hypocrite that chase it own tail. If you want to play wag your tail :)
5:32PM,
This pimp undersea still selling alittle girls to foreigner to get rich, this how Ah thork tiep undersea run the courntry, Pouk Ah Mok krass Som tien thork tiep undersea!!
stop using fake marriage to come here pouk ah corrupted throk tiep!
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