UN employee [Seng Kunakar] walks free

Seng Kunakar (Photo: Ly meng Hour, RFI)

Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Thomas Miller and Tep Nimol
The Phnom Penh Post

The message was, ‘We can go after any of you’. Not only to WFP, but also the Cambodian staff who work with the UN agencies

An employee of the United Nations World Food Programme walked free yesterday after serving a six-month prison term for incitement, in what some have called an ongoing campaign of intimidation against UN staff by the Cambodian government.

Seng Kunakar, who worked as a logistics officer at a WFP warehouse in Russei Keo district at the time of his arrest, was released from Prey Sar prison at midday, his lawyer Chou Sokheng said yesterday.

“I took a release letter to the prison and he was freed,” Chou Sokheng said.

Seng Kunakar was arrested on December 17 and, in a rapid-fire trial less than 48 hours later, was convicted of criminal incitement for sharing printed articles from the anti-government website KI-Media with co-workers.

Government officials later said the articles had branded Prime Minister Hun Sen and other senior officials “traitors”.

Reader's letter regarding the Koh Pich tragedyClick

Click on the handwritten letter in Khmer to zoom in

Letter from Gao Hongying on comment posted on KI-Media

KI-Media Note: Dear Readers, we just received the following email from Gao Hongying regarding a comment posted by a former employee of the Vietnamese company Sacombank. Gao Hongying did not indicate in his email his relationship with Sacombank, only to warn us to pay attention to his email which we have reproduced below. In our opinion, there is no reason for us to revise somebody else's article content or remove it unless a gross error has been made which we do not believe that was the case.

• Firstly, if the Sacombank feels that it has been slighted by our comment, this bank should have sent us an official letter asking to clarify the situation and we would have gladly obliged.
• Secondly, Gao Honying did not provide any indication of his relationship to this bank either, furthermore, the email address he uses (webmaster@chasoft.net) to send the email below to us does not provide any clue that Gao Hongying is related in anyway to Sacombank.
• Thirdly, the anonymous author who posted the original comment did not use the words "illegal and unethical" in his/her statement, we at KI-Media take responsibility for using these words as the header to the comment. Should Gao Hongying himself reads the explanation in that article, then Gao Hongying would be able to understand where, in our mind, these words would come from.
• Fourthly, we believe that, logically, if we were to remove this article, why then should we make revision to the article as suggested by Gao Hongying (you MUST make a revision on the content of that article and remove it immediately) in the first place?
  

Sincerely,

KI-Media team

Dear KI-Media TEAM,

Please pay attention to my email because this is really a very serious issue!!!

Two days ago, i read an article on your website with the title "Illegal and unethical employment practive against Khmer employees at the Viet Sacombank in Cambodia?". I think you MUST make a revision on the content of that article and remove it immediately.

In this article, a man who resigned from a company with a reason "the company decrease his salary after probationary period", then he accused the company for Illegal and unethical", more than that, he hurt all vietnamese company in Cambodia, especially all Vietnamese! After probationary period, anything can happen. The company can terminate his contract, increase or decrease this sallary. And any other companies will do the same! So what is "Illegal and unethical" here. If he don't accept the offer, he can resign as he did. But he did accuse the company is completely wrong. And I can see that all readers, they don't pay attention to the core problem of that man, they seem only care about the title only and then there are many unsuitable comments.

I just want the KI-Media TEAM read the article carefully and do the appopriate action. Thank you very much!

Best regards,
hongying

If those who met Sam Rainsy and Sean Pengse were "pseudo patriots", how about those who gave the land to Yuons? Aren't they "sold-out traitors"?

An example of the so-called "enormous achievement in socio-economic development", in common language, it's called "forced eviction"
Successful dismantling of the Khmer Rouge: Did Mr. Hay Ratha "conveniently" forget that the trio above were former Khmer Rouge cadres?

Distorting the facts?: The CPP couldn't even explain how these border stakes are posted on top of Cambodian rice fields, now who's blind?

KI-Media Note: Is the MFAIC unable to issue an official press statement for it to rely on a student's opinion to express its views? On the other hand, with Mr. Hay Ratha's eloquence, he easily deserves to be called Hor 5 Boratha, is it not?

An Assembly of Pseudo Patriots

Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Posted on Cambodia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs website
Hay Ratha
Student

KI-Media (KI) reported online that on 14 February 2010 over 100 people met with Sam Rainsy and Sean Pengse in Paris who talked on the loss of Cambodian territories because of encroachments by neighboring countries. While the number of people who actually turned up for the meeting was far fewer than claimed, KI’s report made it sound as if it was a gathering of top leaders by saying that “the debate actually covered a broader topics including the current political, economic and social situation in Cambodia, as well as the evolution in diplomacy and geopolitics”

It’s really ridiculous to hear a small group of people with dual-nationality, who would take immediate flight to save their own skin at the slightest risk of danger, to twaddle in big words such as “redress the situation in the Motherland”. What do they really want to redress?

It is an undeniable fact that Cambodia has made an enormous achievement in its socio-economic development. Rising from the ash of the decades-long wars and genocide, Cambodia now has a vibrant economy which experienced a double digit growth in recent years before the global economic meltdown. Many important infrastructures have been rehabilitated or built, such as various major bridges, roads and hydropower plants, irrigation systems, thousands of schools and hospitals etc... This is not to mention that the Royal Government of Cambodia was able to devote its efforts on development only in 1998, after having successfully dismantled the Khmer Rouge.

This small group of pseudo patriots has turned a blind eye to the efforts and achievement made by their own Motherland and choose to only find faults and inflate shortcomings in following obediently the Opposition Party which has no other policy than distorting facts and serving foreign interest. They made a grave offense to the nation by trying to divert public attention away from the heated issue of foreign aggression on our Western border. The traitors invented a story and brewed up a storm about the loss to Vietnam of Cambodian territory, where in fact the Joint Border Commissions of the two countries are working smoothly on legal documents and map to demarcate the border.

Hay Ratha
Student

Official Denies Statements at US Rights Hearing

Ouch Borith: A master of "truth spinning"?

By Chun Sakada and Men Kimseng
Original reports from Phnom Penh and Washington
16 September 2009

A Foreign Affairs official dismissed as false statements made to US Congress by Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Mu Sochua, in a human rights hearing last week.

Mu Sochua’s description of a country where democracy was a “façade” was meant “only for cheating the Cambodian people,” said Uch Borith, a secretary of state for the ministry, told reporters at a press conference after meeting with US Ambassador Carol Rodley.

He also denied reports on a Web site called Khmer Intelligence KI-Media that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would send a delegation to investigate rights issues.

The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission invited three prominent Cambodians to testify on Thursday, after noting a worrying trend in the erosion of rights and freedoms in the media.

Mu Sochua and another opposition lawmaker had their parliamentary immunity revoked earlier this, as the courts pursued lawsuits against them by senior officials; and at least one opposition journalist is in jail after accusing senior officials of corruption.

Meanwhile, a US congressman said Cambodian government representatives should have been invited to the hearing last week should the US wish to see changes in Cambodia’s human rights record.

“I do not believe that holding a hearing that gives voice to the opposition party and excludes the ruling party is the way for us to proceed in affecting change in Cambodia,” Eni Faleomavaega, a Democrat from Samoa, said in a statement issued on the day of a hearing conducted by Tom Lantos Human Rights commission. “I also do not believe that any Commission should usurp the role of the US Department of State or the diplomatic relations we have established between our two countries.”

KI-Media’s Open Letter to Mrs. Carol Rodley, US Ambassador to Cambodia

The public needs to know the truth!

16 September 2009

Mrs. Carol A. Rodley
US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia

Dear Mrs. Rodley,

On 16 September 2009, several Cambodian news media, including the US-funded Radio Free Asia, quoted Mr. Ouch Borith, the Cambodian secretary of state of the ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying: “…Therefore, what the [US] ambassador told me yesterday when I met her, it was a clear confirmation that the internet publication by KI[-Media] does not reflect the truth, it is an exaggeration and a lie.” (Click here to read the RFA article in Khmer).

What we would like to confirm with you is whether you indicated to Mr. Ouch Borith that the article in which KI-Media translated in English from an original article posted by Radio Free Asia, a station funded by the US, was “an exaggeration and a lie” – as Mr. Ouch Borith seems to attribute this claim to you – or that it was merely Mr. Ouch Borith’s personal malicious interpretation.

Your reply is of utmost importance for the parties involved, including the following:

1. For Mrs. Mu Sochua, whom according to Mr. Ouch Borith, the Phnom Penh regime representative, would be the source of this “exaggeration and lie”.
2. For Radio Free Asia, an institution funded with US taxpayer dollars to “provide accurate and timely news and information to Asian countries whose governments prohibit access to a free press,” who would be the source for spreading this “exaggeration and lie”.
3. For KI-Media, which translated the RFA report from Khmer to English in order to provide information to the general public on the actual situation in Cambodia that would otherwise be censored by the Phnom Penh regime, who would also be a secondary source for spreading this “exaggeration and lie”.

As a representative of a country that champions freedom of expression in the world, we urge you to clarify this issue and confirm or deny the claims attributed to you by the Phnom Penh regime representative. If Mrs. Mu Sochua did not tell the truth about her meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, you, as the representative of the US government, or Mrs. Clinton should demand an apology from Mrs. Mu Sochua.

If RFA’s report was indeed an “exaggeration and a lie”, you, as the representative of the US government, should petition the US Congress to stop funding this institution which seems not to “provide accurate and timely news and information to Asian countries whose governments prohibit access to a free press”.

If KI-Media indeed helped spread “exaggeration and lie” as Mr. Ouch Borith claimed, please do let us know so that we may bring a correction or an apology, or even retract our publication, if necessary.

On the other hand, if what Mr. Ouch Borith attributed to you was merely a spinning of the truth by the Phnom Penh regime, we would also like to obtain your clarification in this matter, in order to show to the world, and more specifically the Cambodian public, how low this regime has to stoop to protect its authoritarian image.

We would greatly appreciate the honor of your reply. Please email it to us at kiletters@gmail.com

Sincerely,

KI-Media team

KI-Media is the target of CPP Ouch Borith’s wrath for reporting an article from Radio Free Asia on Mu Sochua-Clinton meeting

Ouch Borith's press conference ... to spin the truth or to control the damages? (Photo: Khmer Sthabna)

Ouch Borith: Mrs. Hillary Clinton did not reply to the request made by Mrs. Mu Sochua

16 Sept 2009
By Sopheap
Khmer Sthabna
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

"Ouch Borith claimed that, according to Carol Rodley, she clearly indicated KI-Media’s publication does not reflect the truth, it was an exaggeration and a lie."

Click here to read the RFA report about the meeting between Mu Sochua and Hillary Clinton

The Cambodian ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFAIC) held a press conference in the afternoon of 16 September to discuss about the meeting between Ouch Borith, the CPP secretary of state of the MFAIC, and US Ambassador Carol Rodley on 15 September 2009.

Ouch Borith declared that he usually meets with the US ambassador in Cambodia for exchange of opinions in the development of the bilateral cooperation between Cambodia and the US. In his most recent meeting, Ouch Borith told Carol rodley about an article published by KI-Media regarding what Mrs. Mu Sochua spoke in Washington DC. In its publication, KI-Media indicated that Mrs. Mu Sochua met with Mrs. Hillary Clinton, and according to Mrs. Mu Sochua also, she said that: “I asked Mrs. Hillary Clinton to send a delegation led by the US ambassador at large [Melane Verveer], and in response [to this request], Mrs. Clinton gave a positive answer to the request.”

Ouch Borith indicated that, regarding this issue, Carol Rodley clearly indicated that indeed Mrs. Clinton met with Mrs. Mu Sochua, but that meeting was done outside of the office [unofficial?]. The pair shook hands without planning in advance [by chance?], it was not a bilateral [meeting] or anything else. Regarding the request made by Mrs. Mu Sochua to Mrs. Clinton to send a high level delegation of check the human rights violations in Cambodia, Carol Rodley said that it was true that Mrs. Mu Sochua raised this issue. However, Mrs. Clicnton did not provide any answer to any request, there was none.

Ouch Borith claimed that, according to Carol Rodley, she clearly indicated KI-Media’s publication does not reflect the truth, it was an exaggeration and a lie.