In a rejection of a provincial leader’s push for hardline monitoring of journalists, the head of the Ministry of Information this week denounced the arbitrary detention of two reporters and urged authorities to more closely cooperate with media workers.
A Koh Kong journalist was sentenced to a year in prison for incitement on Thursday — without a lawyer and just two days after being questioned by police — over a report that the deputy governor was “cruel and abuses citizens.”
An audio recording, shared with VOD, appears to show Defense Minister Tea Banh instructing Koh Kong officials to take action against journalist Youn Chhiv. Several government-aligned media outlets have reported on Banh’s instructions, including some that quoted from the recording.
District authorities deleted photos on reporters’ cameras and made them leave a public area as authorities demolished residents’ homes, allegedly without compensation, near the Boeng Tompun lake development.
Some 1,061 cases of “fake news” have been identified by the Information Ministry this year, according to a ministry report — 910 of them for inciting criticism of the government or insulting the country’s leaders.
An online journalist says he received an anonymous call that he took to be a threat after reporting on land clearing in Siem Reap province.
Three journalists who were attempting a live broadcast from a land protest at Phnom Penh’s Boeng Tompun lake area were taken to a police station and made to sign an agreement that they would not make the same mistake again.
A reporter has been arrested in Battambang over alleged incitement related to his Facebook activity, according to military police.
News publisher Los Seng, of Los Seng News, says he is under pressure over covering land disputes related to Phnom Penh’s new international airport in Kandal province, warned to stop his reporting and told that a case against him was headed to court.
Hundreds of Kampong Chhnang residents blocked a national road in Pursat province on Tuesday so they could resume farming on land they say they have tended for decades, as authorities confiscated a recorder and deleted photos belonging to a VOD reporter covering the protest.
Dozens of families in a Kandal village have been marked for eviction to develop Phnom Penh’s new international airport, and have petitioned Prime Minister Hun Sen complaining of the state’s compensation offer that they say is a mere 10th of market prices.
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