A Cambodian journalist has died of a bullet wound after being shot while covering illegal logging in this country’s remote northwest, sparking an outcry among press freedom groups, though authorities were quick to blame the murder on a personal dispute.
Chhoeung Chheng worked for the online publication Kampuchea Aphivath, also known as the Cambodia Development News. His editor, Run Sareth, told The Diplomat that the alleged assailant was a “known illegal logger” and pulled the trigger after “he became angry.”
Police and authorities in Siem Reap province said Chhoeung Chheng, 63, was shot in the abdomen with a homemade gun around 6 p.m. on December 4, while riding a motorbike near Boeung Per Wildlife Sanctuary. Doctors removed a bullet but he succumbed to his wounds at 2 a.m. on December 7.
One suspect, 40-year-old Si Loeuy, has been arrested and confessed to the shooting while under interrogation by local police, who described the murder as a “personal dispute.”
“While details are still emerging about the murder of Chhoeung Chheng, his killing highlights the risks reporters continue to face in Cambodia to find facts and bring them to the public’s attention,” said Gerry Flynn, president of the Overseas Press Club of Cambodia (OPCC).
Cédric Alviani, the Asia-Pacific Bureau Director of the press freedom watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres, urged the Cambodian government to ensure his death did not go unpunished, and to take concrete action to end violence against journalists.
“Journalists covering illegal deforestation in Cambodia face frequent violence,” he said. “This murder is appalling and demands a strong response. We call on Cambodian authorities to ensure that all parties responsible for the attack are severely punished.”
Phil Robertson, director of the advocacy group Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates, said it was not a simple coincidence that Chheng was shot while traveling to cover a story about potentially unscrupulous activities in a community forest area.
“The sheer amounts of money that can be made from selling illegally felled timber has fueled a truly dangerous situation with companies and guards seeking to intimidate, harass, and drive away investigators,” he added.
Independent sources said Chheng did have a record of working as a journalist but provincial reporters also have a reputation for extorting money from legitimate businesses, including the timber industry.
Those sources didn’t want to be named because of the long-running crackdown that Cambodia has experienced under the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), which began in 2017 under former Prime Minister Hun Sen, who transferred power to his eldest son Hun Manet last year.
Opposition politicians and their supporters have borne the brunt of the crackdown, enabling the CPP to score overwhelming back-to-back victories at elections in 2018 and 2023. But journalists, environmentalists, and social commentators have also been targeted.
Innocently-intended Facebook and online posts have too often resulted in charges of incitement or plotting to overthrow the government. That included a Cambodian woman, Nuon Toeun, working as a maid in Malaysia, who was deported after criticizing Hun Sen online.
Cambodia’s Ministry of Information did express its condolences to the family of Chhoeung Chheng and, as overlord of the country’s state-media apparatus, used his murder to remind all reporters to strictly adhere to its code of ethics for journalists and to work within the bounds of the law.
“The ministry remains committed to fostering a safe environment for journalists,” the ministry’s spokesperson Tep Asnarith insisted.
But as Flynn, Alviani, Robertson, and every press freedom group that monitors this part of the world has recorded, “a safe environment for journalists” is hardly an appropriate description for a reporter’s life in Cambodia.
The closure of the Voice of Democracy, the Cambodia Daily, the forced sale of the Phnom Penh Post to government-friendly interests, and the recent shoddy treatment of the reporter Mech Dara remain a testament to the government’s dislike of independent journalists.
”The OPCC hopes that the swift apprehension of Chheng’s suspected killer sends a clear message,” Flynn said. “But many other cases of harassment against journalists have gone unpunished while repression continues to ratchet up.”
He added, “Years of critical journalists being vilified and scapegoated has created a culture of impunity for those who seek to silence reporters through violence – this urgently needs addressing in Cambodia.”