A man walks past newsstands on Street 51 in Phnom Penh. Photo by: Heng ChivoanBy Sebastian Strangio and Sam Rith
The Phnom Penh Post
PRESS freedom is in its worst state in Cambodia since the early 1990s, say reporters for the country's independent and opposition newspapers, who argue that the current crackdown against government critics risks bringing the country full circle to the repressive environment of the 1980s.
Despite having a press that is freer than Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar, journalists say the current campaign against "disinformation" - which has already forced the closure of one paper and imprisoned the publisher of another - could set the country back 15 years.
"I used to write 100 percent of the truth, but now I've reduced it to about 30 percent," said Tes Vibol, the publisher of Khmer Student News, an independent and self-funded weekly newspaper.
Tes Vibol said he had been sued before, but that the courts had always cleared him of the charges because his stories were fair and objective.
"Those charges were all dropped because I had documentary evidence," he said.
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