PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA (AFP) – A handful of protesters gathered in Phnom Penh yesterday to condemn the shutdown of one of Cambodia’s last independent media outlets, with rights groups also slamming the portal’s closure just months before national elections.
Prime Minister Hun Sen – among the world’s longest-serving leaders – ordered the shuttering of online Khmer- and English-language outlet Voice of Democracy (VOD) on Sunday over what he said was an erroneous report about his eldest son.
Sitting in the meeting room at VOD, journalist Khan Leakena burst into tears as management halted broadcasting at 10am following the revocation of the outlet’s licence.
“I have been here since I was an intern,” she said. “I do not want to cry, but I am so shocked.”
“Shutting down VOD is like shutting down the voice of the people,” she added.
Outside the outlet’s offices, protester Prum Chantha said: “It’s only VOD that speaks about the truth… The government must not shut them down.”
“They are cracking down (on VOD) so that other media outlets don’t dare to rise up, to speak the truth,” he added. “Other media outlets will be scared – this is a threat.”
A dozen police officers blocked the road as information ministry officials delivered the closure notice.
In the now-empty VOD studio, Ith Sothoeuth, media director of the Cambodian Centre for Independent Media which oversees VOD, told reporters: “For now we will stay silent”.
“We hope that this is not the end of everything yet,” he said, adding they were working with stakeholders to find a solution.
In the run-up to the election later this year, Hun Sen has increasingly cracked down on dissent and freedom of speech.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) yesterday condemned the “outrageous and ridiculous order” to shut VOD, which “barely masks the government’s real intent to further suppress media freedom”.
“Going after VOD is a good indication that (the) scheduled July 23 poll will be neither free nor fair,” HRW deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said in a statement.
“The real losers in all of this are the people of Cambodia.”
