Cambodian bloggers opening up conservative society

Clogger Chak Sopheap (Photo: Oso)
Click here to read Sopheap's ifocus blog

06/18/2008
Agence France-Presse

The majority of Cambodian bloggers write in English so they can reach a global audience, but very few touch on one of blogging's most popular topics: politics.

'If I were you, I would run. Otherwise you will be killed' - Threat received by clogger Chak Sopheap who still continue to post her views

PHNOM PENH--When Hor Virak started blogging three years ago, he was one of only a handful of bloggers in Cambodia and quickly gained a following for his frequent postings on technology.

At first, he said, "I just rode my motorbike around and took interesting pictures to post on my blog."

But by the beginning of last year, he was attracting several hundred readers a day and now says he is thrilled with his new-found celebrity.

"When I started it, I had no idea it would take me to this level of fame," he said, sitting at his laptop in a Phnom Penh cafe.

If Hor Virak's idea of fame seems modest, it's because government data show only about 10 percent of Cambodia's 14.4 million people have Internet access.

He is among a lively group of Cambodian bloggers -- or "cloggers" as they call themselves -- who are opening up this tiny, conservative country to the wider world and potentially bringing in unprecedented social change.

Cambodian bloggers are keeping online diaries which they use to reflect on personal relationships, school and social issues, expressing opinions that are traditionally kept private.

"This kind of public expression is a new thing that never happened in our society," said Be Chantra, who trains bloggers through a non profit organization called the Open Institute.

Blogging in Cambodia did not have an auspicious start. In 2003, Be Chantra and two other colleagues travelled the country training 2,000 students to blog in an initiative funded by Microsoft and United States aid agencies.

"It was not successful," Be Chantra said, shaking his head.

Fewer than five percent of his students were able to keep a blog afterwards as they could not access the Internet, he said.

Since then, however, more than 1,000 Cambodians have turned to blogging and most of them are students who began by their own initiative, said Be Chantra.

Cambodian bloggers now meet regularly and hold workshops to teach each other about new software applications. Most see this as great progress as the Internet only arrived here a little more than a decade ago.

"If the Internet was cheaper, faster and easier to access there would be even more bloggers," said Be Chantra.

Despite patchy access to the Internet, 20-year-old university student Keo Kalyan has begun earning an income from her blog musings, written under her online identity as "DeeDee, School Girl Genius."

More than 200 visitors per day check out her postings, which are usually written in pink, and the Indian cosmetics company Shaadi has begun buying advertising space on her site.

"The money isn't much, but I'm happy my voice is being heard," Keo Kalyan said.

The majority of Cambodian bloggers write in English so they can reach a global audience, but very few touch on one of blogging's most popular topics: politics.

Be Chantra's Khmer-language comedy blog is read by the Cambodian diaspora in the US and Japan but those hoping for something beyond humor are confronted with a banner on his site that reads: "No Politics Here."

"Politics could easily hurt you and it is nonsense," he said.

Last year Radio Free Asia reporter Lem Pichpisey fled to Thailand after receiving anonymous death threats for his reports alleging Cambodia's political elite were involved in illegal logging.

Attacks against journalists in Cambodia have fallen in recent years as the government has turned to the courts to punish reporters or publications it feels have violated the press law, critics say.

Although defamation, the charge most frequently leveled against journalists, was decriminalized in 2006, stiff fines now discourage aggressive reporting.

"The good thing about a blog is that it can be anonymous and you still can be contacted," said Gary Kawaguchi, a digital media trainer at the Department of Media and Communications of Cambodia.

"But the press here is very controlled and people still find out who you are so bloggers still have to be careful," he added.

Chak Sopheap, a university student who started a blog in her own name last year to draw attention to Cambodia's impoverished rural communities, said she was threatened for criticizing the ruling Cambodian People's Party.

"The message said, 'If I were you, I would run. Otherwise you will be killed,'" Chak Sopheap said.

While her fellow bloggers have vowed to keep their political criticism anonymous, Chak Sopheap said she will continue to post her views, claiming her blog affords more freedom of expression than Cambodia's mainstream media.

"Through blogs people change their attitudes and open their closed-lip habits. They can talk about how society can be developed," she said.