Excerpt from "Don’t blame newspaper for reporting news"

Thursday, August 4, 2011
Thomas M. Stockwell
Napa Valley Register

Last spring we returned from Cambodia, where the idea of a free press is severely restricted by a regime that regularly intimidates reporters, editors, authors and critics. And I really mean “intimidate.”

Newspaper reporters are daily forced to file their stories — stories that simply report the facts of illegal activities by the government — under pseudonyms. Why? Because in a country that purports to have a free press, these newspapers are regularly sued for defamation by the government, editors are jailed for years by corrupt judges, and journalists who publish these reports are targeted for assassination.

It’s one of the reasons why Cambodia is still — 30 years after the Khmer Rouge — identified as the most corrupt government in Southeast Asia.

The Prey Nokor website accessible from Cambodia

Click the link blow to access the Prey Nokor website on Wordpress:

http://thepreynokor.wordpress.com/

Cambodia denies action to block critical web blog [KI-Media]

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 19, 2011 (Xinhua News Agency) -- The Cambodian government has denied that action was taken against critical web blog that runs from overseas.

Khieu Kanharith, minister of information and the government's spokesman said Wednesday that no action was taken against KI-Media, a web blog which is critical to the government.

He said he still can access to the web as of Wednesday afternoon.

Earlier in the day, local media Cambodian Express News reported a few users of EZECOM internet service provider, one of the country's internet services are complaining they are not able to access to the website, quoting a source as saying all websites with BlogSpot which includes KI-Media are blocked by the Interior Ministry.

But, spokesman of Interior Ministry could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

KI-Media which runs from overseas is considered by some readers as a critical blog against the Cambodian government which often carries articles touching on corruption, poverty among others.

No one could confirm whereabouts KI-Media is exactly operated, except saying it is run from overseas.

Global Witness website barred in Cambodia: Hun Sen's regime afraid of Global Witness report?

Click here to download the report in Khmer (PDF)
Click here to download the report in English (PDF)

NGO website barred in Cambodia for releasing scathing report

2009-02-09
Xinhua

PHNOM PENH -- The website of UK-based corruption watchdog the Global Witness has been blocked for some local web users following its release of a scathing report on Cambodia's nascent oil and mining industries last week, national media said on Monday.

AngkorNet, one of the kingdom's leading internet service providers (ISP), had blocked the site over the weekend in a manner consistent with a deliberate attempt to prevent access, English- language newspaper the Phnom Penh Post quoted Norbert Klein, editor of the online Cambodia Mirror, as saying.

"This doesn't happen automatically. Somebody somewhere must have done something," he said, adding that the block could either have originated with the ISP itself, or "somewhere further upstream."

AngkorNet representatives confirmed the Global Witness site was barred to its customers, but could not provide further details into the reasons for the restricted access.

The 70-page "Country for Sale" report accused corrupt ruling elites of monopolizing the kingdom's mining and oil industries, aided by a "total lack" of transparency.

The report has drawn fierce criticism from Cambodian government officials since its release on January 5.

Government Pulls Plug on Radio Station [-Censoring the free press ahead of the election?]

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

Click here to listen to the program in Khmer

The government has shut down a radio station in Kratie province, in what critics call a censoring of free press.

The station, Angkor Rotha, was shut down Wednesday after broadcasting only 13 days, said owner Keo Chan Rotha.

The station had sold several broadcasting spots to political parties competing in July’s general election, he said.

“I ask the government for my radio to be broadcast again, because I want Cambodian to have more free information from all [political] parties,” he said.

Human Rights Party Vice President Keo Remy called the shuttering of the station a violation of free expression and an attempt to “shut up” voices of democracy.

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said the radio station had “made the mistake of breaking the license contract and looking down on the information official in Kratie province.”

A similar radio station in Siem Reap province was still running, he added.