Stock photo agencies cash in on Khmer Rouge tragedy
23 April 2018
A woman with short-cropped hair stares directly into the camera, her head cocked slightly to the side. On her lap is a sleeping infant just barely in the frame. The woman was the wife of a Khmer Rouge officer who fell out of favour, and one of thousands of prisoners at S-21 whose photograph was taken on arrival at the infamous torture centre.

Shortly afterwards, her baby was taken from her and killed. The portrait is among dozens of S-21 photographs for sale by at least two international stock-image companies. For $199.99 a business can purchase this image of the mother and her baby from UK-based photo site Alamy for use in a “marketing package”. The webpage notes that no model release form was signed by the subject of the image.

Alamy is not alone – at least one other company, US-based Sprague Photo Stock, is also selling S-21 prisoner intake portraits on its website.

Regional magazine Mekong Review first called attention to the sale of the portraits on Tuesday, and in several tweets called into question the practice of selling the images for commercial use on legal and moral grounds.

“These portraits were taken by Khmer Rouge cadres, before they tortured and killed these people. This is wrong,” they wrote on Twitter.

The photos being sold on both stock-image sites appear to have come from photographers who took them while inside the museum where the images are displayed. The museum forbids visitors from capturing any pictures while inside the former prison, and it is unclear if the photographers were visiting with press permissions.
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national- ... ge-tragedy

The story was first broken by the Mekong Review. The photos in question have now been taken down. Well done. The next edition of the Mekong Review magazine will be out on 1 May.

[Drivel removed.]

I'm curious what these stock photos would be used for. Very distasteful, imagine the uproar if it was Jewish Holocaust photos being used for such purposes.

Second photo agency apologises for selling images from Cambodia's genocide museum
27 april 2018
Another international stock photo company has issued an apology after admitting it improperly sought to sell prisoner photographs taken in the late 1970s at Phnom Penh’s infamous Khmer Rouge-era S-21 torture and detention center.

UK-based stock photo dealer Alamy confirmed via an email that the company had started its own investigation into its use of the more than 2,000 images taken at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and determined the photographs were being wrongfully sold.

The company’s sale of the images first came to light last week after regional publication Mekong Review called attention to Alamy and US-based Sprague Photo Stock selling the digital licenses of photographs from inside the walls of S-21, including portraits of individual prisoners.

For many Cambodian families, such mugshots are the only clues to the eventual fate of their loved ones. Nearly all those who entered S-21, also known as Tuol Sleng, never saw freedom again. That the companies would seek to profit from this tragic history – and the fact that the rights to the photos actually belong to the Cambodian government – raised ethical questions surrounding their use.

Museum director Chhay Visoth could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday. The photos being sold on both stock-image sites appear to have come from photographers who took them while inside the museum where the images are displayed, though the museum forbids visitors from capturing any pictures while inside the former prison.
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ ... ide-museum

Beerinthemorning wrote: ↑Tue Apr 24, 2018 2:48 am the Cambodians are officially selling out

How do you come to that conclusion?

John Bingham wrote: ↑Fri Apr 27, 2018 11:51 pm

that genius wrote: ↑Fri Apr 27, 2018 11:41 pm

Beerinthemorning wrote: ↑Tue Apr 24, 2018 2:48 am the Cambodians are officially selling out

How do you come to that conclusion?

He comes to all kinds of moronic conclusions every day, so when a foreign photo stock agency is accused of trying to profit from S21 photographs his immediate reaction, without even reading the article, is to blame "the Cambodians". Bogans can't help being ignorant. There are plenty of great antipodeans around but this guy is as dumb as a brick.

the chinese in SNV