Phnom Penh (AsiaNews) – Mech Dara, Cambodia's best-known independent journalist still active despite media repression, was arrested yesterday while travelling with family members.
The Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association confirmed the arrest citing a military police spokesman who did not indicate the charges nor where the journalist was taken.
At the time of his arrest and before his phone was seized, Mech Dara sent a message to the Cambodian NGO Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO).
Multiple sources report that his recent posts on Facebook regarding environmental damage caused by stone quarries may be behind his arrest. In fact, the authorities yesterday claimed that his posts were causing "social disorder".
In Cambodia, spurious accusations have long been used to silence the media, with laws written or modified for that purpose.
For many years, pressures on Cambodian authorities by foreign government, human rights groups, and media freedom advocates have fallen on deaf ears. As a result, Cambodia ranks 151st out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ annual press freedom index.
About a hundred political prisoners are currently held in Cambodian prisons, including a former leader of the Kem Sokha opposition party, and a dozen environmental activists convicted last year of conspiracy against the government after they spoke out against environmental damage for which they were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six and eight years.
Because of Dara’s reputation, a campaign started yesterday following his arrest and detention, urging the Cambodian government to ensure that the legal action against him and eventually his trial are transparent and fair.
The veteran journalist worked for the Cambodia Daily and the Phnom Penh Post newspapers, which have been silenced by the authorities before he joined the Voice of Democracy, which was also forced to stop publication last year.
His commitment, however, does not only concern domestic affairs, which are already hard to cover without taking great risks, but also involve cross-border issues that touch Cambodia, like online scams by transnational crime syndicates with workers held in virtual slavery, an issue downplayed by the authorities fearful of alienating investors.
For his courageous commitment in this area, the US State Department honoured him last year with a 2023 Trafficking in Persons Hero Award.
