Have you ever been in this situation? You hang out with your mates in a public area and have a little chat and ever so often you discuss the local politics. However, as soon as you start to proclaim your dislike of the current regime out loud and start naming names, there's always that guy (or girl) that's like "I'd be careful about saying this in public."
Locals as well as foreigners living in Phnom Penh keep telling me what a bad move it is to critizise HE and the CPP in public. To which I can only reply "Really?". I have my doubts that I'm such a high profile individual that the secret police will knock down my door and abduct me because I'm not 100% in support of the Cambodian government. I haven't even heard an anecdote about anything like this happening to anybody yet. Sure, every once in a while a reporter gets it in this country, but I'm not a reporter. I'm some twat who's sitting at a table and speaking his mind. The current regime has truly bigger things to worry about than me. What's your take on this? Have you experienced this kind of paranoia before? Do you think that this mentality is justified or not?

Most of Cambodians (not all) are scared to critizise the goverment espically our dickhead prime minister. That's why people created fake account (facebook) to critizise the govermnet. I remebered there was a rumor that said, the the oldest son of the prime minister had formed a cyber team to follow the anti-government activists on facebook.

Soumy Phan wrote:...our dickhead prime minister

Nice! Used appropriately and in context!

Still, it beats the shit outta what goes on across all 3 borders.

.

i saw a guy i worked with bundled out of Indonesia by the local stasi for exactly that years ago.
man his feet barely touched the ground.
they took him out of the pub, watched him pack and drove him to the airport.


since then i figured- not my country- not my business.

plenty wrong in my own country if i want to go political.

Samouth wrote:Most of Cambodians (not all) are scared to critizise the goverment espically our dickhead prime minister. That's why people created fake account (facebook) to critizise the govermnet. I remebered there was a rumor that said, the the oldest son of the prime minister had formed a cyber team to follow the anti-government activists on facebook.

Internet surveilance isn't too far fetched. But aren't like 70% of the Cambodian population living in rural areas? Most of those guys haven't got an internet connection, let alone a facebook account. So these "cyber teams" are only affecting a tiny portion of Cambodians. The ones that openly critizise the government, know how to use a computer, have a facebook account and have an internet connection. I guess that's less than 5% of the population in Cambodia. So these alleged "cyber teams" are hardly doing anything to stop the people's anger.

When we talk about "He Who Cannot Be Named" it's definitely in an ironic tone. However, it's interesting that everyone knows immediately who is being referred to. There is only one possibility, which says quite a bit about the way things are run here.

As for your question, Jacket, I think you can say what you like, but if you go into a bar full of CPP flags and photos etc it may not be an appropriate place to stand on the table and shout "Down with the dickhead dictator!"
(Note to Samouth: "dickhead" may also be used as an adjective. )

It has always been my stance that, as a visitor in another country, I shouldn't speak ill of any politician. In the US, most of us hate it when some dirty foreigner talks bad about our government. As a foreigner, you cannot vote, and protesting would be in rather poor taste and might land you in prison.

That having been said, many smaller countries in Asia trade lesser civil rights and liberties, transparency, and a little bit of lining of the pockets in order to have a strong, competent, and educated leader in charge.

i agree- it is offensive to the locals for us to criticize even if correct.

i am sure the gov is getting technical tutelage from foreign agencies.