Press Release
Just days after the United Nations offered a critical review of Cambodia’s human rights record during the country’s Universal Periodic Review, yet another Cambodian journalist was murdered for reporting the news. Suon Chan became the 12th journalist to be killed in Cambodia during the past two decades when he was beaten to death on Saturday in retaliation for his reporting on illegal fishing in Kampog Chhnang, which was published in the Meakea Kampuchea newspaper.
Chan’s tragic and unnecessary death highlights the perils journalists face in Cambodia, where they are threatened, attacked, and even murdered with total impunity. Of the 12 journalists killed in the last 20 years, not a single case has gone to trial. The Cambodian Center for Independent Media exhorts Cambodia’s police and judiciary system to take immediate action to bring the killers of these journalists to justice.
“The authorities must seek justice for these victims and their families, some of whom have been waiting for decades for proper investigations,” said CCIM Executive Director Pa Ngoun Teang. “The culture of impunity created by a lack of proper investigation gives complete freedom to those who wish to use violence to silence critical voices, and it is a violation of the Cambodian peoples’ basic right to freedom of information.”
CCIM remembers and honors all of Cambodia’s slain journalists, and urges members of the country’s independent press to continue undeterred in their mission to provide the Cambodian people with accurate information.
For more information, contact:
Mr. Pa Ngoun Teang, Executive Director of CCIM
Tel: +855 (0)60 409 999
Email : pnteang@vodhotnews.com
(See attached a list of journalists murdered in Cambodia from 1994 – 2014).
