Zsombor Peter (Cambodia Daily Journalist) Criminally Charged in Cambodia; Appears to be Politically Motivated

Cambodia news in English! Here you'll find all the breaking news from Cambodia translated into English for our international readership and expat community to read and comment on. The majority of our news stories are gathered from the local Khmer newspapers, but we also bring you newsworthy media from Cambodia before you read them anywhere else. Because of the huge population of the capital city, most articles are from Phnom Penh, but Siem Reap, Sihanoukville, and Kampot often make the headlines as well. We report on all arrests and deaths of foreigners in Cambodia, and the details often come from the Cambodian police or local Khmer journalists. As an ASEAN news outlet, we also publish regional news and events from our neighboring countries. We also share local Khmer news stories that you won't find in English anywhere else. If you're looking for a certain article, you may use our site's search feature to find it quickly.
User avatar
StroppyChops
The Missionary Man
Posts: 10598
Joined: Tue May 06, 2014 11:24 am
Reputation: 1032
Australia

Re: Arrest of Peter Zsombor (Cambodia Daily Journalist) in Ratanakiri, Cambodia Appears to be Politically Motivated

Post by StroppyChops »

So, we can action political cases but not pedophile cases, and cops who shoot wildly in crowded areas get off because daddy?
Bodge: This ain't Kansas, and the neighbours ate Toto!
Anchor Moy
Expatriate
Posts: 13458
Joined: Wed May 28, 2014 11:37 pm
Reputation: 3974
Tokelau

Re: Arrest of Peter Zsombor (Cambodia Daily Journalist) in Ratanakiri, Cambodia Appears to be Politically Motivated

Post by Anchor Moy »

Well done. As everybody knows, exposing ties to illegal logging in Cambodia is not without risk, even if we all know that it's going on.

Daily Reporters Win Top Investigative Award
by The Cambodia Daily | June 16, 2017

Aun Pheap and Zsombor Peter, veteran journalists at The Cambodia Daily, last night won a major Excellence in Investigative Reporting award from the Society of Publishers in Asia, which held a gala event in Hong Kong.

The pair won for their investigative feature, “Still Taking a Cut” (December 16), which exposed military involvement in Cambodia’s illegal timber trade. Mr. Pheap and Mr. Peter are currently facing court action from authorities in Ratanakkiri province for a separate story.
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/dail ... rd-131450/
User avatar
CEOCambodiaNews
Expatriate
Posts: 62322
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:13 am
Reputation: 4033
Location: CEO Newsroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Contact:
Cambodia

Re: Arrest of Peter Zsombor (Cambodia Daily Journalist) in Ratanakiri, Cambodia Appears to be Politically Motivated

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Cambodia Daily reporters ignore ‘summons’
28 June 2017
Two Cambodia Daily reporters did not show up to Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday following a complaint filed about election-related coverage in May and an alleged summons, which the newspaper’s management says it never received.
Chea Pich, the prosecutor handling the complaint, said the two reporters – Zsombor Peter and Aun Pheap – had been summonsed separately to appear yesterday morning and afternoon, but neither had done so.

The duo are the target of a complaint filed by former CNRP Commune Chief Rmam Yout and two villagers from Ratanakkiri’s Pate commune over seemingly routine reporting on the locale’s electoral prospects in the recent elections. The three were questioned by the court on June 14.

Cambodia Daily General Manager Douglas Steele said they had not received any summonses and did not want to comment on something that was still not “real”...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/c ... re-summons
Join the Cambodia Expats Online Telegram Channel: https://t.me/CambodiaExpatsOnline

Cambodia Expats Online: Bringing you breaking news from Cambodia before you read it anywhere else!

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT US

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
User avatar
CEOCambodiaNews
Expatriate
Posts: 62322
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:13 am
Reputation: 4033
Location: CEO Newsroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Contact:
Cambodia

Re: Arrest of Peter Zsombor (Cambodia Daily Journalist) in Ratanakiri, Cambodia Appears to be Politically Motivated

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

It's now official.
Cambodia Daily Reporters Summoned in Incitement Case
July 7, 2017
Two Cambodia Daily journalists accused of incitement and violating voters’ rights for asking questions in Ratanakkiri province’s Pate commune ahead of the June 4 commune elections have been summoned to court later this month.

Zsombor Peter, an associate editor from Canada, and Aun Pheap, a Cambodian reporter, were ordered to appear for questioning at the Ratanakkiri Provincial Court on July 20, according to summonses delivered to the newspaper’s office in Phnom Penh on Thursday. They were issued by court prosecutor Chea Pich on June 28.
The two journalists reportedly were first called to appear at court on June 27 but did not appear as neither the reporters nor the Daily received any summonses.

Mr. Pich, the prosecutor, said he was too busy to comment on Thursday. Hak Huon, court spokesman and deputy prosecutor, said he was unaware of any developments in the case.

Nathan Thompson, president of the Overseas Press Club of Cambodia, raised concerns on Thursday over the summoning of the two reporters, who have won awards for their reporting on illegal logging in Cambodia’s rural provinces...
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/camb ... se-132232/
Join the Cambodia Expats Online Telegram Channel: https://t.me/CambodiaExpatsOnline

Cambodia Expats Online: Bringing you breaking news from Cambodia before you read it anywhere else!

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT US

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
User avatar
CEOCambodiaNews
Expatriate
Posts: 62322
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:13 am
Reputation: 4033
Location: CEO Newsroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Contact:
Cambodia

Re: Arrest of Peter Zsombor (Cambodia Daily Journalist) in Ratanakiri, Cambodia Appears to be Politically Motivated

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Former Cambodia Daily reporters charged with ‘incitement’
6 October 2017
Two former Cambodia Daily journalists have been charged with “incitement to commit a felony” over seemingly routine commune election coverage in Ratanakkiri.
The news comes a month after the paper was forced to close after the Tax Department slapped the English-language daily with a bill for $6.3 million.

The journalists, Aun Pheap and Zsombor Peter, now face up to two years in prison after Ratanakkiri Prosecutor Chea Pich laid charges on August 28 and sent the case to an investigating judge. Their defence lawyer, Sek Sophorn, however, said he was only notified of the charges yesterday.

Former Sam Rainsy Party Commune Chief Rmam Yout, along with two other villagers, alleged Pheap and Peter intended to “incite” by interviewing them about why Pate commune had previously elected the opposition party, but Sophorn said his clients’ questions were routine reporting and in no way amounted to incitement...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/f ... incitement
Join the Cambodia Expats Online Telegram Channel: https://t.me/CambodiaExpatsOnline

Cambodia Expats Online: Bringing you breaking news from Cambodia before you read it anywhere else!

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT US

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
User avatar
General Mackevili
The General
Posts: 18400
Joined: Tue May 06, 2014 5:24 pm
Reputation: 3397
Location: The Kingdom
Contact:
United States of America

Re: Zsombor Peter (Cambodia Daily Journalist) Criminally Charged in Cambodia; Appears to be Politically Motivated

Post by General Mackevili »

I have updated this story to make it EXTREMELY clear that Zsombor Peter was not arrested over his alleged actions in Ratanakkiri, but only charged with “incitement to commit a felony,' which, according to The Phnom Penh Post means he now faces up to two years in prison.

I'd like to point out a few things regarding this:

1. Zsombor Peter criticized us for not making more of an effort to confirm the story to be true, and the irony is that I PERSONALLY reached out to him twice afterwards, and never heard anything from him. First, I tweeted him when we ran this story, and he didn't reply. And then about a month later I sent him an email that mentioned this story, and although he admits to receiving the email, he never replied to that either.

It seems odd to accuse someone of not doing enough research and fact checking for a story, yet when they reach out to you personally, you don't respond. I don't know of a better way of getting down to the nitty gritty facts that's better than reaching out to them personally, do you?

3. He also requested that we DELETE this entire topic, and even says there's no good reason to leave it online, as if the whole thing is a made up story, but that is a ridiculous request. This was in several newspapers, including the one he worked for, The Cambodia Daily, so I am glad to edit it so that it's perfectly accurate, but deleting it seems nonsensical.

4. He also said he didn't worry about it earlier because he hoped it would just 'go away.' I don't know how he thinks the internet works, but you can't just put your head in the sand and hope things go away.

5. He complained that we didn't include the sources, and in the same breath complains that he doesn't want his passport details available for the world to see. Well, you can either have your sources, which include your passport number, or we can report on this and not include our sources, as they include your passport details. You can't have your prahoc and eat it too. We often don't include links to every single place we read or gather information from, and one of the main reasons for this is that they more often than not include stuff we don't allow on CEO, and linking to it is practically the same thing as posting it.

So that's it. He says any reports that say he was arrested over this or had to sign anything are not true, and I have made sure that CEO's reporting on it match what his own paper and The Phnom Penh Post say about it, instead of deleting this entire story like he wants.

For what it's worth, I originally offered him the chance to re-write it himself and we would replace it with our original article (if we approved it of course), but he didn't want any of that. I have always been a big fan of the Cambodia Daily, the reporters there and practically their whole team, so I really wanted to let him go ahead and write his own accurate report on it, since CEO's page comes up at the top of the search results when you Google his name, and especially as he's a journalist and could probably do a lot better than we did, LoL, but he turned it down.

And if I'm honest, he comes off as a total dickhead, which really surprised me, as I thought he'd be glad we would jump at the opportunity to help him correct the news story about him as best we could, but he seemed more interested in arguing about what a hack job it was. Whatever. We have made corrections so that anyone reading it can clearly see that neither Zsombor Peter himself or CEO's reporting on it are suggesting he was arrested or signed anything to promise he would stop doing his allegedly illegal interviews. We get a lot of requests to delete things, but he was probably one of the biggest assholes to deal with.



And food for thought, since we're on the subject. His passport details and scans were all over when this news broke about him getting CHARGED NOT ARRESTED. If he was never arrested like he claims, how did all the media outlets and that official who posted his passport scan on Facebook have it? Do journalists have to submit all of this when they start working at The Cambodia Daily or what? If your average foreigner gets arrested or charged, I doubt they'd all have your complete passport details, so I can only guess journalists give all this over when they start. Strange stuff.
"Life is too important to take seriously."

"Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh."

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT ME

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Google+
Instagram
User avatar
cptrelentless
Expatriate
Posts: 3033
Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2015 11:49 am
Reputation: 565
Location: Sihanoukville
Korea North

Re: Zsombor Peter (Cambodia Daily Journalist) Criminally Charged in Cambodia; Appears to be Politically Motivated

Post by cptrelentless »

Is he Polish? They can be a bit funny at times.
User avatar
Cam Nivag
BANNED
Posts: 2511
Joined: Wed May 14, 2014 10:17 am
Reputation: 735
Sao Tome & Principe

Re: Zsombor Peter (Cambodia Daily Journalist) Criminally Charged in Cambodia; Appears to be Politically Motivated

Post by Cam Nivag »

General Mackevili wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:04 am
5. He complained that we didn't include the sources, and in the same breath complains that he doesn't want his passport details available for the world to see. Well, you can either have your sources, which include your passport number, or we can report on this and not include our sources, as they include your passport details. You can't have your prahoc and eat it too. We often don't include links to every single place we read or gather information from, and one of the main reasons for this is that they more often than not include stuff we don't allow on CEO, and linking to it is practically the same thing as posting it.
That's nonsense. You translate words from the local Khmer press written by others, and usurp their photographs, then you post them here and claim that you are "reporting news" without crediting the original source. You even used to watermark local newspaper photos with the CEO logo before you were shamed into stopping that. The reason you don't credit the sources is that you want to take all the credit yourself and of course prevent anyone on the other forum from linking to the local news stories.

You're not withholding links primarily to keep people from seeing info that's "not allowed on CEO," like passport photos. You copy and post passport photos taken from the local press all the fucking time. See here:

newsworthy/53yo-british-man-found-dead- ... 17126.html

newsworthy/british-canadian-tourists-ja ... 16476.html

newsworthy/kampot-british-expat-from-je ... 16433.html


Some of the posters who have requested that you credit original sources can read some Khmer, or have partners who can read Khmer, and want to be able to verify if your translations are correct. Also, different Khmer news outlets have varying reputations for truthfulness, accuracy and allegiance to the regime, which is another reason why people want to know where the story comes from, so they can decide if the story of an arrest/death is trustworthy or if "IT'S A SETUP!/HE WAS MURDERED!"

Just give it to us straight, GM. You're withholding the links to original sources, even though a number of posters have requested this, because you're a sleazy click whore who wants all the credit for himself.

Now, with that said, I'm surprised an actual journalist like Zsombor Peter would have a hissy fit about you translating the Khmer press accounts about his arrest and contact you and demand that the story be wiped from the site. That's laughable. And now when people Google his name they'll see your description of your interaction with him, which doesn't portray him in the most favorable light. This is of course known as the "Streisand effect."
User avatar
Jerry Atrick
Expatriate
Posts: 5408
Joined: Sat May 17, 2014 4:19 pm
Reputation: 3037
Central African Republic

Re: Zsombor Peter (Cambodia Daily Journalist) Criminally Charged in Cambodia; Appears to be Politically Motivated

Post by Jerry Atrick »

He must have shat himself when he got arrested.
User avatar
General Mackevili
The General
Posts: 18400
Joined: Tue May 06, 2014 5:24 pm
Reputation: 3397
Location: The Kingdom
Contact:
United States of America

Re: Zsombor Peter (Cambodia Daily Journalist) Criminally Charged in Cambodia; Appears to be Politically Motivated

Post by General Mackevili »

Cam Nivag wrote:
General Mackevili wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:04 am
5. He complained that we didn't include the sources, and in the same breath complains that he doesn't want his passport details available for the world to see. Well, you can either have your sources, which include your passport number, or we can report on this and not include our sources, as they include your passport details. You can't have your prahoc and eat it too. We often don't include links to every single place we read or gather information from, and one of the main reasons for this is that they more often than not include stuff we don't allow on CEO, and linking to it is practically the same thing as posting it.
That's nonsense. You translate words from the local Khmer press written by others, and usurp their photographs, then you post them here and claim that you are "reporting news" without crediting the original source. You even used to watermark local newspaper photos with the CEO logo before you were shamed into stopping that. The reason you don't credit the sources is that you want to take all the credit yourself and of course prevent anyone on the other forum from linking to the local news stories.

You're not withholding links primarily to keep people from seeing info that's "not allowed on CEO," like passport photos. You copy and post passport photos taken from the local press all the fucking time. See here:

newsworthy/53yo-british-man-found-dead- ... 17126.html

newsworthy/british-canadian-tourists-ja ... 16476.html

newsworthy/kampot-british-expat-from-je ... 16433.html


Some of the posters who have requested that you credit original sources can read some Khmer, or have partners who can read Khmer, and want to be able to verify if your translations are correct. Also, different Khmer news outlets have varying reputations for truthfulness, accuracy and allegiance to the regime, which is another reason why people want to know where the story comes from, so they can decide if the story of an arrest/death is trustworthy or if "IT'S A SETUP!/HE WAS MURDERED!"

Just give it to us straight, GM. You're withholding the links to original sources, even though a number of posters have requested this, because you're a sleazy click whore who wants all the credit for himself.

Now, with that said, I'm surprised an actual journalist like Zsombor Peter would have a hissy fit about you translating the Khmer press accounts about his arrest and contact you and demand that the story be wiped from the site. That's laughable. And now when people Google his name they'll see your description of your interaction with him, which doesn't portray him in the most favorable light. This is of course known as the "Streisand effect."
Haha, I doubt you're really this naive not to know this, but literally all the news outlets across the entire world did this.

Look no further than our recent story about the backpackers arrested for "pornographic dancing." Prohacalypse Now used that term, and magically everyone used that term. Not the local outlets though, LoL.

Did you see how that story went viral around the whole world? Sure, CEO got quite a bit of links and name drops from it, but did the majority of them do so? No. The majority of them simply said "pictures that were posted on a Cambodia expat website."

Ha! I'm not complaining, as that's just the way it is, and since multi-million dollar news outlets from the west, who have the budgets and manpower to do it all themselves or at the very least link to their exact sources don't do it, and I don't know why you have even the slightest issue with a group of us who volunteer to bring people the news in English doing the exact same thing.

So yes, just like all the main news outlets, that is one of the reasons we do it. Happy now?

Also, you are being silly that we shouldn't show passport scans on our site, then link right to them. :facepalm:

And yes, we slip up from time to time, and I've already gone ahead and edited that one. The other didn't have passport info, as we always try to hide it.

Hell, even someone on our news team reported that post that I just edited, back in November of last year, but of course we get busy and things get missed from time to time.

So I'm deeply sorry we don't give you the links you so badly desire, and I'm sure you're exhausted from all the similar messages you've been sending all the major news networks who do the exact same thing all the time.

Image

Image

And thanks for bumping that report that we missed, you're good at this stuff. Come on, join our Mod Team.
"Life is too important to take seriously."

"Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh."

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT ME

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Google+
Instagram
Post Reply Previous topicNext topic
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: ali baba, Amazon [Bot], crackheadyo, EmpatheticUnicorn, mango, orussey98, Stravaiger and 691 guests