"Prime Minister, you promised that no more journalists would go to prison"

Published on 19 February 2010
Source: Reporters Without Borders
Originally posted at http://ki-media.blogspot.com/

Please click here to read the RSF report in PDF file

As a judge acquitted Sok Serey, a reporter for Radio Free Asia’s Khmer-language service, on charges of disinformation and defamation, Reporters Without Borders today released a report on media freedom in Cambodia.

A Reporters Without Borders representative stressed the importance of decriminalising press offences to the information minister during a visit to Cambodia last December, when he met with government officials, journalists and civil society leaders.

Four years after Prime Minister Hun Sen promised that Cambodian journalists would not be jailed for what they write, several journalists are in prison or are facing criminal charges in connection with their work. Reporters Without Borders visited newspaper editor Hang Chakra in the prison where he is serving a one-year jail term for a story about senior government officials.

Entitled “Prime Minister, you promised that no more journalists would go to prison,” the press freedom organisation’s report is based on the findings of last December’s visit. It deplores the lack of diversity in the broadcast media and the fact that government officials are bringing more and more legal actions against the press.

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