Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/ PHNOM PENH: Cambodian leader Hun Sen has shut down one of the country’s last independent media organisations just months before the country’s election.
VOD, or the Voice of Democracy, during last week, published a story that “hurt” the reputation of his government, Hun Sen said on Sunday in a Facebook post.
He has denied accepting the group’s apology, canceling its licence on Monday. Critics said the VOD’s loss was a significant blow to the nation’s limited press.
Editors at the news organization confirmed to the BBC that police had arrived at their Phnom Penh office on Monday morning with an order revoking their operating license.
Some internet service providers have also blocked access to past stories on VOD’s Khmer and English sites, staff confirmed. According to assistant editor Ananth Baliga, who spoke to the BBC on Monday, “people are startled and still trying to digest this.” The interval between the story’s publication and the license suspension “has been considerably hastened.”
Hun Sen shuts down media outlet for publishing specific story
Hun Sen said on Sunday that he was closing down the media outlet after they published a story about the country’s aid response to the earthquake in Turkey. The report on 9 February said Hun Manet, his elder son, had signed off a $100,000 package.
The deputy commander-in-chief of the Cambodian army is Hun Manet; however, the prime minister can only approve requests for foreign aid. Hun Sen requested an apology, claiming that the article had hurt his government’s standing.
According to a statement from the non-governmental Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM), the news site quoted a government spokesman, which also apologized for any confusion this may have caused. Hun Sen, though, deemed the response “unacceptable.”
At 10:00 local time on Monday (03:00 GMT), he issued an order to close the media outlet and instructed international funders to return their contributions.
The CCIM has received funding from several Western embassies and rights and press freedom groups, including Reporters Without Borders and Transparency International. VOD was published and broadcast in Khmer and English, and recent stories included ground-breaking coverage of a slavery scam.
Its mission, as described on its website, was to “promote democratic governance, the development of all economic sectors human rights, and an independent and sustainable environment for media.”
Viewers in Cambodia said it was the leading remaining news organization in the country doing hard-hitting journalism after a major crackdown on civil expression in 2017 and 2018.
VOD’s shutdown comes just months before the elections in the country in July, a vote which has long been dominated by Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party.
Hun Sen, 70, has been in power in Cambodia since 1985, making him one of the world’s longest-serving authoritarians.
In a one-party state where he is currently spending his sixth term as prime leader, he has recently sent several opposition figures to prison or exile.
According to Josef Benedict, a researcher with the international civil society organization CIVICUS, the closing of VOD resulted from Cambodia’s ongoing “attack on civic space and press freedom.”
The government ordered the Cambodia Daily newspaper to pay a $6.3 million (£4.9 million) tax bill, which resulted in the publication’s closure in September 2017. Given the political context, associate editor Mr. Baliga told the BBC that the shutdown of VOD was almost “inevitable.”
In a media environment where there isn’t much of that, he added, “we hope some resolution can come out of this so we can continue doing the journalism of accountability, the news that is vital to Cambodia.”
