To celebrate internatio​nal press freedom day, CCHR announces launch of new official website

CCHR PRESS RELEASE - Phnom Penh, 3 May 2011

To celebrate international press freedom day, CCHR announces launch of new official website

The Cambodian Center for Human Rights (“CCHR”) is delighted to announce the official launch of our new website today, www.cchrcambodia.org. The launch coincides with World Press Freedom Day, which this year focuses on the theme of “21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers”. The new CCHR website is a prime example of how new media to promote and protect human rights and democracy around the world.

The new website contains information about the situation of human rights in Cambodia, and about CCHR and our activities in the furtherance of human rights and democracy. The site also provides links to all CCHR resources – press releases and reports – and news stories about our work. For example, you can access our briefing note released today to coincide with International World Press Freedom Day which is titled “21st Century: New Frontiers, Old Barriers” from the website. The website also includes live feeds from our Facebook and Twitter accounts, and podcasts and Youtube clips of CCHR’s public forums and hearings. In the two weeks since the website has been live, CCHR has received hits from over 40 countries around the world including China, France, Kenya, Laos, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Palestine, the United Kingdom and the United States, to name but a few. These hits demonstrate the reach of new media in obtaining a global audience and opening up new frontiers that can be fundamental in raising awareness of the human rights situation in Cambodia.

Since its establishment, CCHR has embraced new media and is using Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Youtube together with other social media to promote our activities and to draw attention to local, and global, human rights issues. Currently CCHR has more than 3000 individuals following its work on Facebook and has made 844 tweets. In addition, Sithi.org, the Cambodian Human Rights Portal facilitated by CCHR, has had over 100,000 hits since going live in 2009. To continue our tradition of embracing new media, CCHR will shortly be launching an online database of the data collected by our Trial Monitoring Project team.

Examining events around the world, it is evident that new media has fostered dynamic change and opened the doors to new channels of dialogue particularly where human rights and democracy are concerned. In response to the advent of new media in Cambodia, Chak Sopheap, CCHR executive assistant and renowned “Clogger” (Cambodian blogger) notes, “The internet is an invaluable tool for linking individuals and organizations and for sharing information and ideas in the promotion of a better society. New media represents the new digital democracy in Cambodia and brings with it the possibility for positive development for the future of all Cambodians.” We hope that you will find the CCHR website and CCHR’s other new media initiatives useful and we encourage the Royal Government of Cambodia, Cambodia’s internet users and others to continue to open up new frontiers to allow for new areas of debate and discussion.

For more information, please contact Ou Virak via telephone at +855 (0) 12 40 40 51 or e-mail at ouvirak@cchrcambodia.org

Please find this release attached in Khmer and English.

Thank you and kind regards

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The Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) is a non-political, independent, non-governmental organization that works to promote and protect democracy and respect for human rights throughout Cambodia. For more information, please visit www.cchrcambodia.org.