Cambodia Editor Freed on Bail Ahead of Election

Reuters
Jun 15, 2008

PHNOM PENH—A Cambodian newspaper editor and opposition candidate was freed on bail on Sunday after a outcry from rights activists who accused the government of trying to silence critics ahead of a July general election.

Dam Sith, a candidate for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, was charged last week with defaming Foreign Minister Hor Namhong in an article about the Khmer Rouge, the regime blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s.

"This is about putting pressure on journalists. This is all about politics," Dam Sith, editor of the Khmer Conscience newspaper, told reporters after he was granted bail.

Amnesty International said Dam Sith's arrest demonstrated how the criminal justice system "is used and abused" to silence critics of the government in the runup to the July 27 poll.

"His arrest sends a message of fear to journalists and other media workers in the lead-up to national elections next month," the human rights group said last week.

The government of Prime Minister Hun Sen has denied any wrongdoing.

Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who has been in power over the last 23 years, and his Cambodian People's Party are widely expected to win the parliamentary election, possibly with a clear majority of seats.

Hun Sen said early this month that his former co-premier Norodom Ranariddh, now a major opponent who has formed his own political party, would face jail if he returned to the country.

Ranariddh was found guilty last year in an embezzlement suit brought against him by colleagues in the royalist FUNCINPEC party who had ousted him as party leader.

Ranariddh, who was sentenced in absentia to 18 months in prison, has spent most of his time since the trial in self-imposed exile in Malaysia.