Cambodia's free press under fire

July 27, 2008
By Sophal Ear and John A. Hall
International Herald Tribune

On the evening of July 11, Khim Sambor, a Cambodian journalist, was shot to death in public by two unidentified men on a motorbike. He was a member of an increasingly endangered species in Cambodia: a journalist for one of only two opposition newspapers still permitted to operate by Prime Minister Hun Sen's government.

Although Cambodia held nominally democratic national elections on Sunday, this is clearly a country in which the Fourth Estate - the free press - is in serious and perhaps terminal jeopardy.

Just a month prior to Sambor's murder, the military police arrested his editor, Dam Sith, after his newspaper reported on allegations about the current foreign minister's role during the Khmer Rouge regime. Although Sith was released after a week in jail and the foreign minister dropped his lawsuit against the editor, he still faces criminal charges of defamation and disinformation under Cambodia's penal code.

Sith's arrest came only days after the Ministry of Information ordered the closing of a provincial radio station, Angkor Ratha FM105.25, shortly after it leased air time to four political parties, none of which happened to include the governing Cambodian People's Party, or CPP.

According to the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, a coalition of 21 local human rights organizations, Khim Sambor's murder was related to his journalism. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has analyzed his most recent articles and found that they dealt with allegations of government corruption, internal rifts inside the governing CPP, and questions about the distribution of benefits from recent Chinese investment in Cambodia.

Sambor is at least the 12th journalist to have been killed since 1992, when the United Nations landed in Cambodia to undertake what was then its largest and most expensive peacekeeping operation, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia. The UN ran Cambodia's first national election after a decade of Vietnamese occupation and the Killing Fields. Although a royalist party won that ballot, Hun Sen refused to relinquish power and forced a power-sharing agreement that created an unstable dual prime ministership. He ousted his rival prime minister in a coup in July 1997. Elections in 2003 saw the creation of the world's largest cabinet, with more than 300 ministers, secretaries of state, and undersecretaries, far outnumbering members of parliament and senators, combined.

To be fair, a decade and a half after the UN authority arrived, this election season has shaped up to be Cambodia's least deadly for politicians. The police commissioner of Phnom Penh noted that the number of murders have decreased in comparison to the previous election campaign in July 2003.

With the election on Sunday, Cambodia has entered a new phase of managed democracy: Mostly gone are the brazen assassinations of non-governing party candidates, people like Om Radsady, a former royalist member of Parliament who was killed five months shy of the 2003 ballot by two gunmen in Phnom Penh. Radsady allegedly floated the provocative idea of asking the prime minister to answer questions before the National Assembly concerning anti-Thai riots that had resulted in the burning of the Thai Embassy and the destruction of Thai businesses in January 2003.

While it is no mystery that the CPP will win the current elections in Putin-like fashion, what the governing party needs - more than the veneer of electoral legitimacy - is accountability. The real challenge is not just elections for their own sake - Cambodia has proven that a country can have a series of less and less violent elections that result in the same outcome, in which the governing party consolidates power - but the creation and preservation of checks and balances within single-party rule. These are virtually nonexistent in Cambodia. The judiciary is captured and both the National Assembly and Senate are powerless against an executive that rules by edict.

Cambodians know all too well the Chinese adage: "Kill the chicken to scare the monkey."

Now, the Fourth Estate is under fire. All of the country's television stations are pro-government, while the number of independent radio stations has dwindled to two. Speaking truth to power has never been more difficult than at times like these. Supporting a free press in Cambodia has never been more critical.

Sophal Ear is an assistant professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. John A. Hall is an associate professor at Chapman University School of Law, Orange, California. The views expressed are those of the authors alone.

Elections Dangerous for Journalists: Group

This is where Hun Sen's regime learn about freedom of expression from

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
05 May 2008

“Bribes are so commonplace they are not even considered corruption ... Formal censorship exists, and self-censorship is widespread through Cambodia’s media.” - Licadho

Many Cambodian journalists have been physically or legally attacked, and most feel vulnerable or threatened as they set about covering elections, the rights group Licadho said Saturday.

In a report for World Press Freedom Day, the group said journalists experience “threats and fear” that have “direct influence” on their work.

“Their reporting has a direct influence on the public’s perception of their country, especially around election periods,” the report said.

“Cambodia’s media is often described as one of the freest in the region, but in reality journalists describe an environment in which the pursuit of truth is undermined by political bias, fear and corruption,” it said.

Most of the national media are aligned with a political party, and most favor the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, the report said.

“Bribes are so commonplace they are not even considered corruption,” it said. “Formal censorship exists, and self-censorship is widespread through Cambodia’s media.”

Um Sarin, director of the Cambodian Association for the Protection of Journalists, called the report “a reflection of the facts.”

“Recently, some Cambodian journalists have been threatened, assaulted, sued and sacked,” he said.

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith called the report “unfair.”

“If a newspaper wants to support any political party, please go support that party,” he said.

While some papers favored parties, others were independent, he said.

“Asian nations have praised the good freedom of the media in Cambodia,” he said. “Why does Licadho not value Cambodia?”

Journalist's house set on fire again following threat over reports on illegal logging

Country/Topic: Cambodia
Date: 20 August 2007
Source: Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA)
Person(s): Phon Phat
Target(s): journalist(s)
Type(s) of violation(s): threatened
Urgency: Flash

(SEAPA/IFEX) - A reporter's house was set on fire for a second time by unknown persons on 17 August 2007, just a week after the first arson attack occurred.

On 10 August, a blaze had partly destroyed the house of Phon Phat, a reporter for the "Chbas Ka" ("Accurate") newspaper in the western Pursat province.

A day before the fire, an anonymous person called Phon Phat on his telephone, saying, "A 'gift' will be offered for your report on illegal logging activities in Pursat."

Fortunately, Phon Phat and his family escaped unhurt on both occasions.

SEAPA joins its partner, the Cambodian Association for the Protection of Journalists (CAPJ), in strongly condemning the latest criminal act against the journalist, which is an obvious attempt at intimidation, if not a direct threat to his and his family's lives.

"CAPJ considers this criminal act a threat to press freedom that cannot be tolerated," the organisation said in an 18 August media statement, urging the authorities to seriously investigate the case and bring the culprits to justice.

The Cambodian media has been threatened against reporting on illegal logging since the 5 June government ban on the United Kingdom-based Global Witness report that alleged top civil servants had plundered the country's forests (see IFEX alerts of 20, 19, 15 and 6 June 2007).

Journalists who had defied the official ban and reported the environmental watchdog's allegations have faced severe consequences for performing their duty to the public. The management of the bilingual daily "Cambodge Soir" closed the newspaper two days after firing its news editor, Soren Seelow, on 10 June, while Radio Free Asia reporter Lem Pichpisey had to seek refuge in neighbouring Thailand on 17 June after receiving an anonymous death threat by telephone.

MORE INFORMATION:

For further information, contact Roby Alampay, Executive Director, or Chuah Siew Eng, Alerts Coordinator, at SEAPA, 538/1 Samsen Road, Dusit, Bangkok, 10300 Thailand, tel: +662 243 5579, fax: +662 244 8749, e-mail: sieweng@seapa.org, seapa@seapabkk.org, Internet: http://www.seapabkk.org

Cambodia standards of justice: You talk, you die

Arson attack follows anonymous threat against journalist reporting on illegal logging

Country/Topic: Cambodia
Date: 15 August 2007
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Person(s): Phan Phat
Target(s): journalist(s)
Type(s) of violation(s): attacked , threatened
Urgency: Flash

(CPJ/IFEX) - The following is a CPJ press release:

Arson attack follows anonymous threat against Cambodian journalist

NEW YORK, August 15, 2007 - The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Cambodian government to launch an independent investigation into the recent arson attack on the home of Phan Phat, a journalist with the local Khmer language newspaper Chbas Kar.

According to local press freedom groups and news reports, Phat's wooden house was set ablaze by unknown assailants at around 4 a.m. on August 10 in the Boeng Khnar commune of Porsat province. The small blaze was quickly extinguished and Phat and his family escaped without injury. Phat was quoted by local media as saying that he had received an anonymous phone call threatening to give him a "gift" the day before the attack, according to the same reports.

Commune Police Chief Sann Ly was quoted in a local publication as saying that the attack was likely in "revenge" for Phat's recent reporting on illegal logging activities in the province's Bakan district. District Police Chief Youk Yoen told reporters that judging by the small amount of gasoline used in the arson attack, the assailants likely did not mean to kill the reporter and his family. The police official said his office was approaching the case as "an attack on the free press."

"There is strong reason to believe that the attack on Phan Phat was motivated by his work as a journalist," said Joel Simon, CPJ's executive director. "Cambodian authorities must act quickly and decisively to uncover who is responsible."

Illegal logging is rampant in Cambodia's provincial areas. Reporters who dare to publish on the activities often face threats, physical attacks, and sometimes death. An investigative report released in May by UK-based environmental watchdog Global Witness accused several high ranking Cambodian officials of complicity in illegal logging, including a senior official inside Prime Minister Hun Sen's personal bodyguard unit. Government officials denied any involvement in illegal logging.

The government ordered a ban on the report's distribution and the Ministry of Information issued a blanket order to local media outlets not to publish on the report's findings. Lem Pichpisey, a radio reporter with Radio Free Asia, nonetheless aired several news stories on the report's allegations. He later received an anonymous death threat by telephone. The radio reporter was forced to flee Cambodia for neighboring Thailand on June 17 due to his editors' concerns about his personal security.

CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.cpj.org