1st step, control the media!!


Like in many authoritarian countries around the world, the Cambodian free press is struggling. Its situation is not unique — autocratic leaders, threatened by the latent power of their opposition, frequently resort to intimidation to silence dissidents. Over the past decade, Cambodia has undergone a precipitous decline in press freedom.

Prime Minister HE’s government brutally stifles government-critical independent media, most recently with the forced closure of Voice of Democracy, one of the last independent media sources in the country. Ahead of the 2018 elections, HE ordered the shutdown of The Cambodia Daily and his associates captured the Phnom Penh Post.

In the 2022 Reporters Without Borders Index, Cambodia ranked 142nd out of 180 countries in press freedom. Between 1992 and 2023, 12 journalists were killed in Cambodia, cultivating an environment of fear for the country’s active journalists. With ‘fear of physical violence and legal [repercussions]’, Cambodian journalists are increasingly under attack— in 2020 alone, the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association documented 35 cases of harassment against 72 journalists.

The rationale behind HE’s crackdown on independent media is for twofold — to ensure the stability of his reign and the continued rule of his family and stifle his opposition especially ahead of the 2023 elections, as he does every election cycle. HE has drowned out independent media with state-sponsored disinformation while branding independent outlets as ‘propaganda’.
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In February 2023, Voice of Democracy, one of these last bastions of Cambodian independent media, was shut down by the Cambodian government. What remains of Cambodia’s free press is under grave threat after the closure of The Cambodia Daily, the capture of the Phnom Penh Post and the expulsion of Radio Free Asia.

HE is targeting what little remains of Cambodia’s press institutions. With firm control and armies of vigilantes or mercenaries ready to take down government critics and ‘cyber troops’ cementing control of Cambodian cyberspace through social media disinformation, HE leaves no room for opposition.


But Cambodia is not yet lost. Even if HE succeeds in extinguishing the remainder of media independence and silencing opposition, Cambodians can still access the international information space. Cambodia has yet to finish its ‘Great Firewall’, even if it has already moved to enforce a National Internet Gateway in preparation for such a move. HE relies on intimidation because the government does not have the resources to shut down the flow of information completely. So long as Cambodians can still travel abroad to see, hear and speak their minds, there is no way to completely extinguish Cambodia’s opposition.

full story:
https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2023/05/0 ... nfosphere/