VUTHASURF

Early this year, Cambodia has a piece of good news to impress the world. Reporters Without Borders released a new press freedom index ranking Cambodia at 85 among 169 countries in the world.

Though this figure seemed low regarding the respect for press freedom in a democracy, Cambodia’s ranking far surpassed that of senior democracies in the region such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines- let alone authoritarian Burma, Lao and Vietnam.

Both the Cambodian government and journalists have proudly boasted that Cambodia’s press was “the freest” among all Asean member countries. With this letter level of freedom, we greatly sympathized with media colleagues in neighboring countries such as Burma, where many journalists were killed or thrown into jail.

We would like the government and journalists in these countries to learn from Cambodia about how to build a democracy and free press.

With the letter ranking of Cambodia’s press freedom and a relatively safe atmosphere, Cambodian journalists have pushed the limit of self-censorship and written high-ranking stories on issues such as corruption, injustice, illegal logging and land grabbing committed by powerful officials and rich businessmen.

Unfortunately, their freedom didn’t live long. Cambodia’s pride in its press freedom appeared to come to an end after a local journalist and his innocent son were brutally gunned down in the street not long after the arrest of the slain reporter’s editor.

Now, Cambodian journalists feel that they are not safe, and Cambodia has nothing left to be proud of regarding its press freedom. Nor have Cambodian journalists anything to teach others.

Instead, they may want to learn from their colleagues in Burma and other countries about how to do their jobs in an insecure environment.

It’s sad that Cambodia has lost its hard-earned pride over its press freedom. Cambodia may be unable to restore this good reputation unless the perpetrators of the recent murder of the Khmer reporter and his son and other past killers of journalists are brought to justice.

(Article written by Moeun Chhean Nariddh, was released on The Cambodia Daily)

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For more than 4 years, I abandoned my study after graduating university, even attending the short training course. Last week, I attended the journalist training course at the Cambodia Communication Institute under funding from UNESCO. The training course was providing the participants how to write articles for peace and conflict prevention in the current society.

There were a few speakers who spent their valuable time to share their knowledge and experiences. There are many and many media channels operating in the Cambodia in the last decade, including newspapers, magazines, bulletins, radios, TVs… etc.

Even though, Media coverage is currently serving the political parties other than the people’s interests. By the way, the broadcasting is under the influence of parties.

Speaker, Meoun Chhean Nariddh said that current journalism market is good for journalists because the salary of employed journalist is increasing, not like before.

I spent one week on this course, it does not mean that I want to be real journalist. I just want to know about how to write content because I like to write something for my own blog.

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Two local-Khmer newspapers journalists were arrested by municipal police on January 13 following Vang SreyNo, Karaoke actress and singer, filed a complaint with municipal anti-human trafficking and juvenile protection bureau against a man for extortion. She claimed that the man called her to make an appointment in order to show sex video clip that he said that the female actor in video clip is her having sex with foreign man.

The both journalists were apprehended by police following they met and gave her the midi-memory card recorded sex video clip at Phnom Penh pagoda. Until now, the both journalists have been detained in the custody of the police pending decision from senior leaders.

Keo Thea claimed that girl who has sex with a man in video clip is alike Vang SreyNo but it was not her because there were many different scars of her teeth, mouth and forehead and so on. He concluded that the girl in video is Asian foreigner who is similar to Korean or Japanese national.

Pen Somithy, CCJ president, said that he is against the arrest of journalists on journalism duty. He appealed to authorities to free the both journalists if there are no enough evident to reveal that the both extorted money from movie actress. He also took this opportunity to call for all colleagues as journalists to comply with code of ethics as journalists and avoid using their role in wrong way that spoils reputation of fellow journalist in Cambodia. He added that “journalist should not be arrested during the duty of professional journalism.” But we have to take responsibility for society, so we have to comply with code of ethics as journalist. The report was quoted by Rasmei Kampuchea Daily.

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