In fact, if you look at the point grade, a far less sexy but more accurate measure than rankings, with 0 being press freedom heaven and 115.50 being Eritrea, Cambodia got a 35.17 this year and 35.50 last — virtually the same grade. Last year, there was the murder of opposition journalist Khim Sambo (also reported as Kim Sambor and Khem Sambo) busting the numbers. That murder in broad daylight in the busy streets of Phnom Penh just before the elections last July is still unsolved, as are all 13 murders of journalists in the country since the 1990s. (Add to that unionists and other activists and the number climbs exponentially.) This year, it’s a slew of defamation suits and a worrisome new penal code that criminalizes undefined information-related offenses and includes in the potential sentences a lifetime ban on practicing journalism in the country.

I look forward to reading RSF’s detailed analysis of Cambodia. (Individual country analyses do usually come out one by one after the index is published). In the meantime, watch out for the meaning behind the stat: locals know full well media freedom isn’t improving one bit in Cambodia.

It’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it what it feels like to see freedom of expression slowly degrade in front of you. Taken individually, each slight against the political opposition, each rebuff of the concerns of activists, each veiled threat made to a journalist is just that. You brush it off and keep doing your work. Then one day, you’re having lunch at a popular Phnom Penh restaurant, commenting on the news of the day and the latest offense of the Cambodian government against the rights of its people, and you get shushed. “You can’t say that in public,” my friend said. That’s when you know something’s gone awfully wrong.

Mind you, Cambodia’s not the kind of country where secret police watches over you as you eat your fried rice. But with systematic defamation suits, forceful intimidation of anyone trying to assert their rights against the powerful and an ingenious political strategy of constantly ridiculing the opposition, the Cambodian government is letting it be known, subtly but efficiently, that dissent will not be tolerated.

The number one tool of crushing opposition without a bloody massacre in a stadium that would attract unwanted attention is the defamation lawsuit. Anyone saying anything that might be construed as remotely negative about the government and its associates runs the risk of a lawsuit. And because courts are notoriously bought out to the powerful (they are the least trusted institution in a country ripe with corrupt institutions), being sued means being found guilty.

My former editor-in-chief and a former colleague were fined $1,000 each last month for defamation. Their crime? Quoting an opposition politician in a story as doubting the academic value of a Vietnamese university degree bequeathed en masse to 22 high-ranking officers of the Cambodian army. The opposition politician only escaped his own lawsuit after putting the blame on the journalists and accusing them of misquoting him. (Maybe I’m biased because I know the guys, but I don’t buy that one second.) This is what now constitutes defamation in Cambodia: expressing doubt about something the government is saying. Before that, it was opposition politician Mu Sochua, who sued Prime Minister Hun Sen for a circumstance that met all the legal standards of defamation and was sued back in turn by the PM for daring to sue him. Guess who won that one…

Earlier this month, the National Assembly passed new statutes that both criminalize defamation, insult, exaggeration of information, discrimination and invasion of privacy, and fail to clearly define any of those terms.

The new code defines public defamation as, “all exaggerated declarations, or those that intentionally put the blame for any actions, which affect the dignity or reputation of a person or an institution.”

The code also includes the criminal offense of public insult, which covers, “Any insulting expression, any scorning term or any other verbal abuses.” (from The Cambodia Daily as quoted in Details are Sketchy.)

No definition of what insult or defamation might be. No actual malice test. No higher standard for public officials. Worse yet — no truth as a defense.

The rest of the new penal code currently in discussion is in the same vein. (Articles related to freedom of expression are available here, as is a commentary by FOI advocate Article 19 right here. In all fairness, DAS notes that journalists are shielded from the law, but Article 19 says potential punishments include being banned from practicing journalism. Will settle that score when I’m more awake.)

Since the ruling Cambodian People’s Party has a more-than-two-thirds majority, discussion of this and other texts in Parliament is a mere formality. The assembly now only serves to rubberstamp the prime minister’s decisions. The opposition is fairly weak and the CPP likes it that way. Of course, it’s expected they’d disagree on many matters. But more than that, the government is content with having no opposition at all. There is no value given to the balancing role of opponents, to a political debate where two sides are weighed and considered. Opponents only exist to be systematically ridiculed in the prime minister’s speech, and their suggestions are shot down on principle.

Of course, this prime treatment is not just for journalists and opposition politicians. People who take a leading role in defending their communities, from land grabs for instance (the hot issue of the day), face harassment and arrests. And more than one NGO worker has declined my interview requests in the past because they felt they could only do their work if they did it quietly.

It’s getting to the point that people outside the country are actually starting to notice.

“The rule of law is weak in the country. The judiciary is not as independent as it should be. Some of the core political rights such as the freedom of expression and peaceful assembly have been undermined…”

… said Surya Subedi, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, in his first report to the Human Rights Council earlier this month. Run that through the filter of UN talk and that’s pretty much what I’ve been saying.

As his predecessor Yash Ghai put it,

“One does not need expertise in human rights to recognize that many policies of the government have subverted the essential principles of democracy and due process…”

(That phrase was included in a US House resolution condemning the corruption of the Cambodian government.)

Human Rights Watch’s Asia director, Brad Adams:

“The Cambodian government is imposing its most serious crackdown on freedom of expression in recent years. Once again, Hun Sen is showing his true stripes by harassing and threatening to imprison peaceful critics of his increasingly authoritarian government.”

Or as the Council of Ministers spokesman and state secretary Phay Siphan often put it to me, (loose recollection of his exact words),

“Yes, you may criticize the government, but you may not insult it.”

Problem is, saying the government isn’t doing its job is an insult. Saying they’re corrupt is an insult. Saying things could be done differently is an insult. Saying the truth is an insult.

Part 2 – With one hand they keep down the opposition, with the other, they lure the masses: how political discourse and media structure work to maintain the status quo. (Coming soon, when I’ve got another night to spend writing…)

Note from the author: From May 2008 until last month, I lived in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and worked as a journalist there. Amid the joys of discovering jasmine-scented temples and fermented fish sauce that smelled of something else, I also became familiar, by the very nature of my job, with Cambodian politics.

Others know more about Cambodia than I. Cambodian (and longer-term expat) journalists and activists likely have a deeper analysis. Unfortunately, they’re there and few dare express such analysis out loud. (For great, out-loud stuff, you need to read the Details Are Sketchy blog, which of course is anonymous.) Eighteen months don’t make me an expert, but they do give me more insight than most everyone outside the country, who never see Cambodia on their news.

If things are so dire, you might say, why didn’t I write this sooner? Rightfully or not, I’ll never know, I thought that writing this might have compromised my position as a reporter and later a documentary producer in Cambodia. Pressures on those exercising their right to free speech are not uncommon, and my own production was threatened in unequivocal terms. I considered the work I was doing there more important — and ultimately more resounding — than the release I might get from writing down my deep thoughts on this blog. But now I’ve left those jobs, I’ve left the country and I’m free to write.

(Photo: Prime Minister getting out of a plane at Pochentong International Airport, 26 october 2008)

For most of my time as a reporter in Phnom Penh, I have been covering the border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia near the 11th century Preah Vihear temple. The temple belongs to Cambodia by a final and unequivocal decision of the International Court of Justice issued in 1962, no question about that. Even the Thai government’s official position is to not contest the temple’s ownership. The dispute is over 4.6 square kilometers of land (mainly jungle with leftover landmines) near the temple. The legal and political details would bore my non-Cambodian readers, but suffice it to say the dispute, which has historical implications dating back decades if not centuries but heated up last July, has fed deep nationalistic sentiment on both sides of the border.

I noticed in the months spent reporting on this that Thai officials increasingly used the Thai name for the Cambodian temple —Phra Viharn— when I’d heard (and read) them used ‘Preah Vihear’ before. That’s the Cambodian term and also the one most frequently used in English/French, as far as I’ve seen. The name issue surfaced as a problem in border negotiations back in November, and again last week. I considered writing about that, but the Bangkok Nation beat me to it with a quite well written article on Feb 4. They showed that the Thai government frequently used “Preah Vihear” in the past, as recently as in July press releases still available on the ministry Web site.

Well, lo and behold, when I went to look for those uses of the offending word, I (almost) couldn’t find them. (Almost) every use of the words “Preah Vihear” had been redacted and changed to the Thai spelling “Phra Viharn”! It seems somebody went through the trouble of editing the public historical records of official ministry communication. How do I know this? How do I know my memory isn’t shaky or the Nation reporter wasn’t lying? It seems the Thai MFA’s Web editing software automatically updates the datestamp when the file is changed. If that’s on purpose, I commend the architect of this system for their care for transparency. So all those communiqués are still in chronological order of their original release but with a new datestamp of “February 4, 2009.” Just see the screengrab.

Thai Foreign Ministry website, press releases page 9, as captured on Feb 5, 2009

I counted 18 news releases modified. Apparently someone didn’t know about the “Find and Replace” function because a few “Preah Vihear” references remain within the text of at least two communiqués I went through. I know PR isn’t journalism, especially government PR, but the whole process just seems dishonest to me, and a bit sneaky (besides smacking of limited Web competence). PR has ethical rules, too, and redacting history surely doesn’t qualify as ethical. I’ll let you be the judge.

Kristof has reached this blessed stage where he actually gets paid to write his opinion and doesn’t have to check his every word for potential bias. I don’t know a single journalist who hasn’t, at least once, envied this position.

Kristof and NYT video journalist Kassie Bracken interview Cambodian schoolkids

Meeting him reminded me of this point I’ve so often made in private conversations, and that I now feel should be made publicly (albeit not very eloquently because I’m still recovering from New Year’s Eve). I often feel that journalists (maybe myself included, unvoluntarily) have been so hurt by accusations of bias, are so afraid of their stories appearing one-sided, that they’re afraid of saying things as they are. Calling a cat “a cat” as we say in France. As someone commented on Kristof’s blog (I can’t find it now), the New York Times won’t even call water-boarding torture, resorting instead to an easy out (”which many consider to be torture”). Case in point.

Kristof photographs a Cambodian kid in Prey Veng province

So reading Nick Kristof’s columns is a breath of fresh air, even if I do sometimes agree with the critics and suspect that his political opinions and advocacy objectives can occasionally warp his reporting behind the columns. I like to read someone who calls the evils of the world what they are, even if, sure, nuance here and there could help. After all, his job is somewhere between journalism and advocacy so he gets to. And someone’s got to. So meeting him was a pleasure and an honor, and I couldn’t resist getting a photo together. (I managed to resist with a room full or rock stars last month so that’s high praise.)

Kristof and I in Phnom Penh. Ignore the bad hair and generally exhausted face; only in movies does the foreign correspondent look hot after getting up at 5 am and working all day under the unforgiving Cambodian sun

I like to get people’s input when preparing long-standing interviews, so if you have questions for those guys, let me know and I’ll work them in if they fit.

Note: I can think of plenty to ask Placebo, but I frankly don’t know the other guys so well. So do especially share if you’re familiar with Click Five, Duncan Sheik, Kate Miller-Heidke or Pou Khlaing.

Vann Molyvann (Pardon the poor photo, I was too busy taking notes.)

There are days — many if you’re lucky — when being a journalist is more than a job, more than the only thing you can picture yourself doing: it’s a privilege. Sunday was a day like that.

I spent a good chunk of the day discovering parts of Phnom Penh I had not yet seen — and another, the Foreign Language Institute, where I was just the day before without fully appreciating it — with Vann Molyvann, the leader of an architecture movement in the 1950s and 1960s that truly built modern Cambodia under the direction of now-retired King Norodom Sihanouk.

As far as tour guides go, he’s definitely as good as it gets. I always find fascinating to meet people who have seen moments in history I have only read about in textbooks. Maybe one day, I’ll be an old woman who can say she’s seen 9/11, Bill Clinton and Vann Molyvann. In the meantime, I just feel privileged talking to them and brushing past history.

For the full story, pick up today’s Cambodia Daily.

Khim Sambor (also spelled Khim Sam Bo) and his son, Khat Sarinpheata, 21, were killed Friday evening in a drive-by shooting in downtown Phnom Penh. They were on their motorbike, and two men on another motorbike fired 5 shots at them, according to reporting by colleagues at the Daily. Khim Sambor died at the scene; and his son later at the hospital.

The investigation has not yet determined whether the murders were linked to Khim Sambor’s journalistic activities. It could have been a mere coincidence; shootings happen in Phnom Penh, increasingly these days. But the victims were not robbed or involved in a fender-bender (yes, those have prompted several shootings lately). The family said they did not know of any personal disputes that could have prompted the killings.

Khim Sambor was a journalist for the newspaper Moneaksekar Khmer, affiliated with the Sam Rainsy Party, the main opposition party here. (The press is highly politicized here, and most newspapers are linked to one party or another.) Khim Sambor had written articles about corruption in the government, and his newspaper has been in disputes with the ruling party. Most recently, Dam Sith, the editor of Moneaksekar and an SRP candidate in the July 27 general election, was charged with defamation and disinformation for printing comments by Sam Rainsy himself linking a government minister to the Khmer Rouge. Dam Sith was put in pretrial detention for a week. The charges have since been dropped.

Local and international NGOs and the opposition have linked the murders to the election season and Khim Sambor’s activism. The government has, too, condemned the murders, as well as foreign governments, and the US Embassy has offered the help of the FBI for the investigation. Elections are in two weeks; the campaign has been a bit tense, though not to the extent of past political turmoil in Cambodia. There have been a couple of killings and other non-lethal attacks of people both from the ruling party and the opposition, as well as threats; no murder has yet directly been linked to the victims’ political activities.

Being a journalist in Cambodia can be tough and frustrating (where isn’t journalism tough and frustrating?), but it’s typically not dangerous — certainly not fatal. This is a worrisome development. So please keep Khim Sambor in mind.