ប្រតិកម្មរបស់អគ្គនាយកសារព័ត៌មានសេរីតបទៅការប្រមានរបស់លោក​ សួន សេរីរដ្ឋា

Monday, July 30, 2012
By Pichpisey Lem

​ថ្មីៗនេះលោកសួន សេរីរដ្ឋា ប្រធាន ចលនា អំណាចពលរដ្ឋខ្មែរបានប្រតិកម្ម​មកលើកិច្ច​សន្ទនា​នយោបាយស្តីអំពីការ​ចាប់​ខ្លួន​លោក ម៉ម សូណង់ដូ ដោយ​​​រដ្ឋាភិបាល​ក្រុង​ភ្នំពេញដែលបានចេញផ្សាយកាលថ្ងៃទី២១ខែកក្តដាឆ្នាំ២០១២គន្លងមកនេះ។លោកសួន សេរីរដ្ឋាបានគម្រាមថានិងប្តឺងលោកអគ្គនាយកសារព័ត៌សេរី ។

សូម​ស្តាប់​​​កិច្ច​សន្ទនា​នយោបាយ​ រវាង​លោក យូ សារ៉ាវុឌ្ឍ និង​លោក ឡឹម ពិសិដ្ឋ​អគ្គនាយកសារព័ត៌សេរី អំពី​បញ្ហា​នេះ​ដូច​តទៅ ៖

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The Dangers for Journalists Who Expose Environmental Issues

Sep-18-2009
Source: Reporters sans frontières (Reporters Without Borders)

We must defend journalists who expose attacks on the environment.

Radio Free Asia, one of the few media to cover this story in detail, was threatened by a man who went to the station’s bureau in Phnom Penh. And one of its reporters, Lem Piseth, had this conversation with an anonymous caller: “Is that you, Lem Piseth?” “Yes. Who are you?” “You are insolent, do you want to die?”

“Why are you insulting me like this?”

“Because of the business of the forest and you should know that there will not be enough land to bury you”. Piseth fled across the border into Thailand.

This kind of threat has to be taken seriously.

(PARIS, France RFP) - Guinean journalist Lai Baldé has been threatened. Egyptian blogger Tamer Mabrouk has been sued. Russian journalist Grigory Pasko has just spent four years in prison. His Uzbek colleague, Solidzhon Abdurakhmanov, has just been given a 10-year jail sentence. Mikhail Beketov, another Russian journalist, has lost a leg and several fingers as a result of an assault.

Bulgarian reporter Maria Nikolaeva was threatened with having acid thrown in her face. Filipino journalist Joey Estriber has been missing since 2006… What do these journalists and many others have in common?

They are or were covering environmental issues in countries where it is dangerous to do so. There is a lot at stake in the environment. The first step in protecting nature is to carry out a detailed survey of the state of the resources and the way they are used. On the basis of this analysis – in which the press plays a significant role – political decision-makers can then establish rules and norms for economic actors and the public.

The gathering of information alone is threatening for many companies, organised crime groups, governments and the various kinds of intermediaries that profit from misuse of the environment. Environmental concerns complicate their plans. As a result, investigative journalists and environmental activists are seen as an unwanted menace and even as enemies to be physically eliminated.

In many countries – especially, but not only, those that are not democracies – journalists who specialise in the environment are on the front line of a new war. The violence to which they are subjected concerns us all. It reflects the new issues that have assumed an enormous political and geostrategic importance. The conflicts between journalists and polluters are too many and too varied to be listed.

Sometimes a crisis can be sparked by no more than a journalist’s arrival at a sensitive location where his presence is not wanted. In southern China, for example, foreign journalists have been chased out of villages where most of the world’s discarded computers are stripped apart in an environmentally disastrous manner. In other cases, it is the publication of a detailed press report, with names and facts, that sparks an act of physical aggression or coercion.

This is what happened to Mikhail Beketov, who was beaten nearly to death by local government thugs who did not like his coverage of a plan to build a motorway through a Russian forest. The assailants are not always who you might expect. In most cases, the violence is the work of thugs in the pay of criminal entrepreneurs or corrupt politicians. But in some countries, as Reporters Without Borders has found, the local population paradoxically often supports those responsible for deforestation or polluting factories although it is the most direct victim. The reason is nonetheless obvious.

Those who get rich by despoiling resources are able, in the process, to provide work to those in most need. As a result, combating deforestation and pollution is often difficult and thankless work.

The fight is all the more unequal for usually being waged in countries where all the machinery of state seems to be an accomplice to the crimes and where the judicial apparatus, when it exists, does not play its role. Most cases linked to the environment never reach a conclusion in the courts. You can even say that most journalists are on their own when it comes to defending themselves. Hence the importance of making this struggle known and mobilising public opinion in its support.

Depletion of natural resources – a sensitive issue everywhere Natural resources are not inexhaustible. What is true underground is also true on the surface. The forest can regrow, but the forests that man is replanting today will never be as biologically rich as the primary forests that are hundreds of thousands of years old.

Hence the importance of conserving them.

That is what Lúcio Flávio Pinto, the founder and editor of Jornal Pessoal, a Brazilian bimonthly based in Belém, in the northern state of Pará, tried to do. He published a series of reports about deforestation in the Amazon. As a result, 33 lawsuits were brought against him. Lai Baldé, radio Bombolom-FM’s correspondent in Bissora, in northern Guinea-Bissau, took up the same cause. The day after the station broadcast a long report by him on illegal logging, he got an anonymous call offering advice: “Hey, brother! Why are you making such a big deal about this? We know that these people are doing something bad. But we have no choice. Don’t talk about this again. Be nice.”

In Burma, the question is dealt with in a more radical fashion. The military government’s censorship board has suppressed all references to illegal logging, making things easier for the Chinese companies that are logging on a large scale. Cambodia has lost half of its primary forest in the past 15 years although millions of dollars in foreign aid have been spent on protecting the Cardamom Mountains. Three journalists received death threats when they tried to follow up reports on deforestation by the NGO Global Witness that implicated associates of Prime Minister Hun Sen in large-scale illegal logging. Hun Sen’s brother Hun Neng said that, if any Global Witness representatives came to Cambodia, he would “hit them until their heads are broken.”

Radio Free Asia, one of the few media to cover this story in detail, was threatened by a man who went to the station’s bureau in Phnom Penh. And one of its reporters, Lem Piseth, had this conversation with an anonymous caller: “Is that you, Lem Piseth?” “Yes. Who are you?” “You are insolent, do you want to die?”

“Why are you insulting me like this?”

“Because of the business of the forest and you should know that there will not be enough land to bury you”. Piseth fled across the border into Thailand.

This kind of threat has to be taken seriously.

Filipino journalist Joey Estriber, a radio host in Aurora province (northeast of Manila), has been missing since March 2006. He was kidnapped by four men and never seen again. In his programme “Pag-usapan Natin” (Let’s talk about that) on a local radio, he often criticised the intensive logging in Aurora by companies with allies inside the government and he had participated in a campaign to have the permits of nine of these companies withdrawn.

The Indonesian island of Sumatra is being deforested as fast as almost anywhere in the world. One of the logging companies responsible, PT Lontar Papirup Pulp and Papers, is a subsidiary of Asia Pulp & Paper, itself a subsidiary of the powerful Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas. So it is not easy for journalists to draw attention to this ecological disaster.

Cyril Payen, the Southeast Asia correspondent of several French media, investigated illegal logging by PT Lontar Papirup Pulp and Papers, but he and his crew were arrested by company security guards on 10 July 2009 as they were filming trucks being loaded with timber. The company’s head of security tried to seize their video cassettes before handing them over to the local police, who continued to hold them until they were freed as a result of protests from the local media.Many inter-Lúcio Flávio Pinto has been exposing environmental devastation in Brazil for more than 40 years.

Logging on the Indonesian island of Sumatra national corporations do business with Sinar Mas without a thought for Sumatra’s deforestation.

Referring to Sinar Mas, Payen told Reporters Without Borders: “They buy journalists or threaten them with lawsuits. Although the Indonesian media are free, they do not do enough reporting on the rampant deforestation that is taking place.”

The Aral Sea’s destruction is another example of authorities trying to cover up the catastrophic waste of natural resources. Solidzhon Abdurakhmanov, an Uzbek journalist who had written extensively about the Aral Sea ecological disaster, was arrested in Karakalpakstan, a western autonomous region of Uzbekistan, on a drug trafficking charge in June 2008 and was summarily sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The verdict was quickly upheld by the local supreme court on 19 November 2008 despite procedural irregularities and enormous gaps in the prosecution case. The video the police made of the operation that led to Abdurakhmanov’s arrest strangely did not show the moment the drugs were allegedly found. The police also failed to say where he was supposedly obtaining the drugs or to whom he was supposedly selling them.

What we do know about Abdurakhmanov is that he wrote for many independent news websites, including Uznews, which called him “the last independent voice in Karakalpakstan,” and that he specialised in covering the impact of the Aral Sea’s disappearance on the local population’s livelihoods and health. Everything indicates that his arrest was deliberately planned in order to punish him for his reporting.

Back in Brazil, Vilmar Berna, the editor of the Niterói-based environmentalist daily Jornal do Meio Ambiente, which exposes clandestine overfishing and threats to protected marine life in Rio de Janeiro Bay, is a constant target of threats and intimidation attempts. A bloody, half-burnt body was dumped outside his home in May 2006. As if the meaning of that “message” was not sufficiently clear, an anonymous woman caller then warned him he could be killed soon. He filed a complaint with the Niterói police and hired two bodyguards.

But he could not afford to keep paying them and he no longer has protection. Fabrício Ribeiro Pimenta had to flee his home town in the neighbouring state of Espirito Santo after being assaulted on 30 July 2009, apparently at the behest of the owner of an illegal marble factory that he had repeatedly denounced in his reporting as source of toxic dust in a residential district.

There is no shortage of examples. In 2008 in the Republic of the Congo, residents of the village of Mbodji (60 km from Pointe-Noire) complained about the build-up of drilling waste at a nearby oilfield where the Italian company Eni Congo is drilling. After going there and doing a report, Télé Pour Tous (TPT) immediately found itself being pressured and threatened by the local authorities.

But this time, the local population demonstrated in support of the journalists and samples of the drilling waste were finally taken for laboratory analysis. They are still waiting for the results.

In Egypt, Trust Chemical Industries has for years been dumping unrecycled water into Lake Manzalah and the Suez Canal, near Port Said, while the government, out of fear or as a result of corruption, refused to intervene. Tamer Mabrouk, an ordinary blogger, investigated the issue and then took the risk of posting the results of his enquiries online. He was sued for libel in June 2008.

“I brought a lawsuit against the company myself, requesting its closure as a source of pollution,” Mabrouk said. “The court ruled that it was not competent to hear the case. At the same time, Trust Chemical Industries asked me to withdraw my suit in return for a sum of money. When I refused outright, they demanded that I issue a retraction.” A Port Said court fined Mabrouk 6,000 euros on 26 May 2009 – a fairly dissuasive message for someone who takes more than a year to earn that kind of money. He was then fired from his job.

In Côte d'Ivoire, people no longer seen to remember that large amounts of toxic waste from the Probo Koala, a tanker chartered by the Dutch company Trafigura, were dumped in and around Abidjan in September 2006. Gases emitted by the waste reportedly killed 10 people and injured 7,000. It was a big story for a while but now there is nothing in the newspapers. Concern about the environment seems to have evaporated. The Yopougon industrialists who pump chemical products into Abidjan’s lagoon are suspected of keeping the subject off-limits by slipping “envelopes” into some journalists’ pockets.

In China, Wu Lihong was sentenced to three years in prison in 2007 for alerting the Chinese and international media to the pollution of Lake Taihu, the third largest in China. In Internet posts, he blamed the uncontrolled dumping of industrial waste for the lake’s asphyxiation. Another example, China’s Propaganda Department, which is in charge of censorship, waiting 10 days in 2005 before allowing the media to report that the Songhua River had been contaminated with benzene, thereby endangering the lives of millions of people living on its banks.

Critics of nuclear power are also liable to be punished in China if they try to take their case to the media. Gansu province anti-nuclear campaigner Sun Xiaodi and his daughter were arrested in June 2009 on charges of “divulging state secrets abroad” and “spreading rumours” for disseminating information Pollution of Lake Taihu near the city of Wuxi, in Jiangsu province.

The dangers for journalists who expose environmental issues about radioactive contamination at uranium mine No. 792. Sun was sentenced the following month to two years of reeducation through work. His daughter was also sent toa camp.

In information posted online and provided to the foreign media, they had also accused officials in the Gansu district of Diebu of exaggerating the impact of the May 2008earthquake in their district in order to obtain more state aid. A former worker in mine No. 792, Sun has been campaigning tirelessly about the dangers of radioactive contamination for the past 20 years.

Peru is another glaring example. The Andean town of La Oroya is the fifth most contaminated place in the world because of a smelting complex operated by Doe Run Peru. Its 35,000 inhabitants are permanently exposed to heavy metals and gases. But you will not hear anyone talk about this scandal because the company has developed an effective method of surveillance using a network of “health workers” who patrol the town. Anyone talking to independent journalists risks losing their job and social benefits. The impoverished inhabitants are very hostile towards the press, which is seen as posing a threat to their only source of work. Doe Run Peru’s employees rejected an ecological rescue plan in order to be sure of keeping their jobs.

Even more emblematic is the case of Grigory Pasko, a former reporter for the Russian navy’s in-house newspaper Boevaya Vakhta who went on to write for the ecology magazine Ekologiya i Pravo about the neglect of the navy’s nuclear submarines and the resulting pollution. While still working for Boevaya Vakhta, Pasko had filmed footage of the Russian fleet dumping radioactive waste in the Sea of Japan. It was eventually aired by the Japanese TV station NHM, causing an international outcry.

After spending 20 months in prison from 1997 to 1999, he was tried and sentenced to four years in prison in 2001 on charges of spying and high treason. He was accused of illegally attending a meeting of the navy high command in order to gain access to classified information and pass it to Japanese news media. He appealed against his conviction before the Russian supreme court and then took his case to the European Court of Human Rights. In 2002, he was awarded the Reporters Without Borders-Fondation de France prize for his fight against censorship.

Even defending protected natural areas is risky. The Sofia-based weekly Politika ran a story by Maria Nikolaeva on 9 February 2007 about an illegal real estate development project in the Strandzha national park, Bulgaria’s largest nature reserve. The same day, two men went to Nikolaeva’s office and told her: “You know full well you shouldn’t write things like this. And you know what happens to curious journalists, they get acid thrown at them.”

A journalist based in Khimki, a satellite town outside Moscow, Mikhail Beketov has criticised the local authorities for years and has established a reputation as a defender of Khimki Forest, which is threatened by the construction of a motorway betweenMoscow and St. Petersburg. His car was set on fire in May 2007. Local prosecutors brought a criminal libel case against him in February 2008. At the start of November 2008, he had been drafting a letter to the Russian authorities to accompany a petition signed by Khimki residents opposing the motorway, but he never posted it. He was beaten and left for dead outside his home on The Peruvian city of La Oroya, the site an enormous smelting complex, is one of the world’s 10 most contaminated places.

He survived, but only after spending days in a coma and having a leg and several fingers amputated. One of Beketov’s lawyers, Stanislas Markelov, was murdered in the centre of Moscow on 19 January of this year. The Moscow-based daily Novaya Gazeta published Beketov’s letter on 18 February. But the inhabitants of Khimki never saw the issue. Someone bought up all the copies that were meant to be distributed there. Khimki mayor Victor Strelchenko, the originator of a real estate project that Beketov had opposed, was reelected in March.

In Sri Lanka, Tamil journalists have been prevented from investigating the impact of the military presence on the Jaffna Peninsula’s natural areas and in some cases have been threatened for trying to do so. An environmentalist writer called Ayngaranesan said: “Since 2006, I have been seeking information about the deforestation in certain militaryc ontrolled areas. The military have totally disrupted the ecosystem for security reasons. I recently wanted to write an article about the environmental impact of the refugee camps set up by the government but the editor said the subject was too sensitive.”

Finally, in Namibia, where very attractive nature reserves are available to tourists, some things are not meant to be seen. Jim Wilckens, a British investigative journalist working for the Eco-Storm news agency, and his South African cameraman, Bart Smithers, were arrested on 16 July 2009 while filming the culling of baby seals on the coast.

They were eventually released after being fined 5,000 Namibian dollars (443 euros) each on charges of violating the maritime resources law by entering a restricted area without permission.

A long-term struggle

French photographer, filmmaker and ecologist Yann Arthus-Bertrand and a 10-member crew were doing a report for the programme “Seen from the sky” about the controversial construction of a dam at Yacyreta, near Posadas (the capital of the Argentine province of Misiones) when they were arrested at Puerto Iguazú airport on 20 February 2008.

The suspicions of the Argentine police had been aroused by their meeting with inhabitants of the village of El Brete who opposed the dam. The helicopter they had chartered was forbidden to take off and they ended up being held for five days before finally being released on bail.

Journalists everywhere take risks into order to make others more aware. They must keep going, despite all the various kinds of harassment to which they are exposed. This aim of this report is to denounce the indifference of authorities and governments that too readily neglect the protection of journalists who are defending the right of their fellow citizens to be informed about attacks on the environment.

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: RFA & Lem Pichpisey

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Some Not as Lucky as Refugee Reporter [-Lem Pichpisey's escape saga from Cambodia]

Lem Pichpisey

By Taing Sarada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
09 February 2009

[Editor’s note: Lem Pichpisey, a 40-year-old reporter for Radio Free Asia, arrived in Norway under UN protection last month following reported death threats and a flight with his family from Cambodia last year. The government and spokesmen for Prime Minister Hun Sen have repeatedly denied allegations of involvement in illegal logging, a subject of Lem Pichpisey’s reporting ahead of the threat. This is the second part of a Lem Pichpisey interview with VOA Khmer, by phone from his new home.]

Q. Can you briefly describe your situation while you lived temporarily in Thailand?

A. In Thailand, what I mainly faced was the law, because I lived illegally. If the Thais found out, they could send me right to prison and then back to Cambodia. Luckily, I asked [the UN High Commissioner for Refugees] to help, because I had received a death threat, due to my expression of sensitive information regarding illegal logging and land-grabbing. So the UNHCR registered my name on their list.

The UNHCR issued a certificate for me to hold onto. That certificate was not as strong as a passport or visa, which would have allowed travel anywhere in Thailand, but at least the certificate could be used if the Thais arrested me. I would show it to them so that I could call a number for UNHCR, and an officer would intervene, so Thai authorities wouldn’t send me back to Cambodia.

As I have already told you, in Thailand it was not an easy place. I faced a lot with my illegal stay, and I faced other problems as well. Other refugees from the Sam Rainsy Party, Khmer Kampuchea Krom and other Khmer political refugees, including myself, faced another matter, which was being secretly followed by Cambodian secret agents. There are many secret agents the Cambodian government has sent to investigate or follow us.

So we moved from place to place, and it was not easy, and, in the end, just before leaving for Norway, I was arrested by Thai authorities, who sent me to Thai jail because I had over-stayed in Thailand. They detained me for a week, like other Khmer people detained there. I was a bit luckier than the other Khmer people in that prison, because I had protection from UNHCR and I had been granted political asylum by Norway.

So I was sent out from Thailand through Suvarnabhumi airport, which was different from hundreds of other Khmer people, who are being detained and seriously tortured by the Thai prisoners who live in the prison with them. Thai prisoners extort the Khmer detainees at 10 baht [about $0.28] a day. I saw that Khmer people in Thailand have it very, very difficult, not just me. I saw hundreds of Khmer people sent to Thai jail and hundreds of them deported to Cambodia because they live illegally in Thailand.

Q. What is your living condition in Norway? Is it difficult or easy, having just arrived?

A. When I first arrived in Norway, what was most different was the weather. It is really, really cold, zero Celsius. I saw a sunny day when I first arrived, but two and three days later, I saw the snow fall. I saw ice around my house in Norway. I really like living here, because they provide me and my whole family with everything, including clothes, house, education, and social health care, letting us live equally with other citizens. We have a good human value over here, meaning we have freedom, not just the freedom of expression, but other freedoms, and equality, like other citizens. And the weather is no problem for my family.

Q. What do you plan to do next?

A. My goal for the rest of my life is to work to serve the Khmer people as a human rights defender and journalist forever. I also want to continue my education, to get a PhD, after which I will share my knowledge and experience with the young generation. Besides that, I will do some research and investigate a big case for the Cambodian people.

Q. Would you like to send any messages to journalists or human rights activists in Cambodia?

A. I would live to tell all local journalists, international journalists and senior journalists inside and outside Cambodia to maintain their stance, to broadcast and publish balanced, accurate and just news. What I want to say is, if we stand on the side of bringing accurate information to the people, we will be successful in the future.

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: Lem Pichpisey, a Decent Khmer-Journalist

Click here to read the related article

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Journalist Recounts Flight After Death Threat [from the family of the thieves of the Nation]

By Taing Sarada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
02 February 2009

[Editor’s note: Lem Pichpisey, a 40-year-old reporter for Radio Free Asia, arrived in Norway under UN protection last month following reported death threats and a flight with his family from Cambodia last year. The government and spokesmen for Prime Minister Hun Sen have repeatedly denied allegations of involvement in illegal logging, a subject of Lem Pichpisey’s reporting ahead of the threat. Lem Pichpisey spoke to VOA Khmer by phone.]

Q. Can you tell us briefly about why you fled to Norway?

A. I decided to leave my beloved Cambodia because I received a death threat, when someone put a bullet outside my Battambang house to scare me. My daughter found the bullet when she was sweeping dirt in front of the house. We thought this was the last sign and that we had to leave Cambodia, and I should give up on the profession of journalism.

Someone had threatened my life before the bullet in front of my house. The first death threat I received was while I was investigating and reporting about massive illegal deforestation at Prey Long, in Tum Rinh commune, San Dan district, Kampong Thom province. After that, I received a death threat while I was reporting this issue for Radio Free Asia, and it was exactly the same as the [government-banned] Global Witness report published June 1.

When I verified my investigation with that report, it was exactly the same on illegal deforestation, which involved Prime Minister Hun Sen’s family members and high-ranking military officials of Military Division 70 and a group of Hun Sen’s bodyguards, and especially Hun Sen’s in-laws. They were involved in this destruction, according to my investigation and the Global Witness report.

Q. When you first received a death threat, where did you go? You then returned to Cambodia. Why?

A. I escaped to Thailand, because I thought that at least Thailand had more democracy than Cambodia. The reason I came back to Cambodia was that I had committed myself to work fighting for democracy and the rule of law after I received the knowledge from US-provided training about international journalism and media management. After that training, I wanted to show my gratitude by sacrificing myself to training and bring about human rights, democracy and real freedom of expression to the Cambodian people.

Because I still loved the profession of journalism, I left Thailand and came back to Cambodia and told my boss at Radio Free Asia in Washington that I could not live in Thailand anymore, that I needed to go back to Cambodia. Some people had asked me why I had to come back to Cambodia, didn’t I feel scared? I told them that I felt scared, but I needed to ask the International Human Rights organization to pressure the government, and when the situation calmed down a bit, I could go back to Cambodia and continue my journalism.

Q. What happened with the second death threat? How many threats were there? And where did you flee for you life?

A. I received another death threat early in November 2007. I escaped to Thailand again because I had published Free Press Magazine, a compilation of many reports about illegal logging, the death of dancer Piseth Pilika and the report of Global Witness. That was a legal magazine, because I had permission from the Ministry of Information already. The police came to my office in Phnom Penh to confiscate more than 2,000 magazines without telling me ahead of time.

We knew that the police had come to my office to copy some documents, and I was also told by some friends working in the government that the government sent secret agents to investigate me. We knew that the police came to check my background at my home in Battambang province. At that point, I was scared, forcing me to leave Cambodia.

Q. In Thailand, which organization protected you?

A. I received a lot of support from international human rights organizations, including [UN High Commissioner for Human Rights] in Cambodia. I want to clarify that the protection is not against the Cambodian government. But it is a sign that the freedoms of expression and media in Cambodia are still weak, and journalists still suffer from death threats, persecution and intimidation.

So those international organizations issued press releases or statements of protection and urged the government to end human rights violations against activists and journalists. Some of the international organizations that issued press releases to support me were the Asian Human Rights Commission, based in Hong Kong, Licadho, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, Adhoc, journalism clubs and the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance and others. That meant there was a spirit of support from national and international non-governmental organizations.

Cambodia Sees Little Rights Progress

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia--Women walk past balloons bearing "Clean Hands" logo on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Dec. 10, 2008. (Photo: AFP)

2008-12-11
Radio Free Asia

Local groups see no progress this year in human rights in Cambodia.

PHNOM PENH—Cambodians saw “no progress” this year in human rights, with human trafficking, forced evictions, and official impunity persisting as major concerns, according to Cambodian rights groups.

“Like last year, there has been no progress,” said LICADHO [Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights] president Phung Chhiv-kek in an interview.

“The land issue, the human trafficking issue, and the issue of sexual assaults have remained problems,” he said.

Journalists also are subject to physical and legal attacks, leaving press freedoms a “mirage,” LICADHO director Naly Pilorge said.

In July, Moneakseaka Khmer columnist Khim Sambo was shot to death, along with his son, by still unidentified assailants.

In another case, RFA reporter Lem Pichpisey fled the country in the spring with his family after AK47 bullets were found lined up outside his home. The reporter and his family have since been granted protection by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees while they wait for relocation to a third country.

“As far as law enforcement is concerned, we see that many fundamental rules have been broken, especially by government officials and wealthy people,” Om Chandara, director of the Friends of Khmer Journalists Association, said.

“When you break the law, this violates human rights,” he said.

Freedom of assembly

Restrictions were also placed on freedom of assembly in 2008, said Ek Visarakhun, secretary-general of the Cambodian Journalists Council, pointing to what he called “a serious downturn” in the rights of citizens to publicly express their opinions.

“In many ways, we do not seem to have the freedom to stage demonstrations or take part in public gatherings,” he said.

Cambodian Center for Human Rights president Ou Virak agreed.

“The people’s right to freedom of movement has been barred, especially for protestors trying to bring their protests over land disputes to [the capital] Phnom Penh.”

Sam Viriya, a resident of Prampi Meakara ward in the capital, Phnom Penh, said that Cambodia’s human rights situation “is getting worse.”

“Our people have lost faith in the authorities,” he said. “When we have problems, such as complaints about human rights, we prefer going to the NGOs, since state institutions care only about their own problems.”

Calls seeking comment from the government-created National Committee for Human Rights were met with replies from subordinates saying their superiors were busy or traveling.

Poor record

The U.S. State Department, in its most recent report on human rights worldwide, said that Cambodia’s record in 2007 “remained poor,” citing arbitrary arrests, endemic corruption, forced evictions over land disputes, and continued human trafficking.

In a Dec. 10 statement marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission said that "in the field of civil and political rights as well as economic, social, and cultural rights, people in Asia ... have so little to celebrate."

"Even after 60 years of the adoption of this great declaration," the Commission said, "the gap between what is declared and what is actually achieved ... is enormous."

Original reporting by Hassan Kasem for RFA's Khmer service. Khmer service director: Sos Kem. Executive producer: Susan Lavery. Written in English by Richard Finney. Edited for the Web by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Radio Free Asia’s Reporter Received Death Threats

An angry Hun Sen pointing at RFA's reporter Um Sarin in front of the National Assembly, calling him "insolent" and "rude" (Photo: Sralanh Khmer newspaper)

11th April 2008
By Pov Ponlok Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Khmerization On the web at http://khmerization.blogspot.com

The Cambodian Center for Human Right (CCHR) and the Cambodian Journalist Club have issued two separate statements concurrently expressing their concerns about the safety of a Radio Free Asia reporter who had, in the past, filed numerous reports on corruption in the judicial systems, reports about land disputes between the people and the rich and the powerful people, reports about illegal logging and about irregularities relating to the complaints of the people.

Mr. Lem Piseth, a Radio Free Asia reporter based in the northwest of the country, has received numerous death threats through anonymous telephone calls and text messages.

In just the beginning of April, Lem Piseth had already received at least two death threats from anonymous caller and on the 10th of April, unknown person or persons had placed 6 bullets in the front gate of his home in Battambang city.

CCHR and the Cambodian Journalist Club have said that they are concerned about the safety of the reporter and appealed to the authority to take measures to ensure that his safety is protected.

CAMBODIA: Journalist flees country after receiving death threat

Committee to Project Journalitsts (CPJ)

New York, June 22, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely concerned about an anonymous death threat made Saturday against Radio Free Asia (RFA) reporter Lem Pichpisey. Fearing for his safety, Lem fled across the Thai-Cambodian border the next day and is now in exile in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

Lem told CPJ that he received the threat on his mobile telephone while driving in the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh. The anonymous caller told the reporter “to beware” and warned that he “could be killed” for his radio reports on alleged illegal logging activities, he said in recounting the incident.

“I didn’t want to leave my country and stop my reporting,” Lem told CPJ in an interview on Thursday, “but my life was in danger.”

The threat followed a series of RFA reports in which Lem followed up on allegations of official complicity in illegal logging activities. The charges were first made in a research report issued by Britain-based environmental watchdog group Global Witness.

Lem’s broadcasts included undercover reporting in the Prey Long forest of central Kompong Thom province. Lem told CPJ that he had been followed by people he believed were plainclothes military police while in the Prey Long forest and later in the capital.

“We call on Cambodian authorities to launch an independent investigation into the death threat made against Lem Pichpisey,” said Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director. “Democratic governments must ensure the security of working journalists, even when they report critically on official policies and actions.”

A handful of Khmer-language daily newspapers had serialized RFA’s reports on the Global Witness report. The local language Sralanh Khmer newspaper was forced to stop publication of the reports after government officials threatened to close it down, according to media reports.

The management of the French-language Cambodge Soir newspaper sacked the news editor who oversaw publication of the Global Witness report’s allegations, according to news reports. The newspaper has now halted operations after the news staff went on strike over the dismissal.

Journalism Watchdog Condems Death Threat of RFA Reporter

Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
19/06/2007

France-based Reporters Without Borders condemned Tuesday threats to a Radio Free Asia reporter who went into hiding earlier this week after receiving a menacing phone call.

Lem Pichpisey was reporting on illegal logging recently uncovered by a scathing Global Witness report that links the crime to Prime Minister Hun Sen, his family and other high-ranking officials.

Lem Pichpisey told VOA Khmer Tuesday he still planned to report on illegal logging, despite an anonymous call that told him to "be careful" and not to be "nasty" in his reporting.

He is the second RFA reporter to go into hiding in as many months. In May RFA reporter Keo Nimol left the country after Prime Minister Hun Sen singled him out as "insolent" during a period of questioning by reporters.

Lem Pichpisey said he feared further repercussions, based on information he received from a source within the Cambodian People's Party.

"This morning I receive a telephone call from a friend working with the ruling party, working with a telephone company, in which a leader's voice was intercepted," Lem Pichpisey said. "He told me to be careful because he heard someone say, 'These [RFA] people are insolent. Wait and see, when the [donor] meeting is over, we will take care of them.'"

Hun Sen adviser Om Yentieng, who is also head of the government's Human Rights Committee, said Lem Pichpisey should file a complaint with authorities if he really received a threat.