Brave New Means of Expression: Cambodia

There have been a lot of debates on Karel Vasak’s classification of human rights as to whether civil & political rights are the first generation of rights instead of socio-economic ones and vice versa. On this matter, liberal thinkers especially in the West have been accused of prioritizing rights such as those to free expression and to a fair trial over the fundamental rights such as rights to food and adequate housing. However, it is acknowledged that socio-economic rights are mostly used by authoritarian elites merely as a façade over their intimidations and oppressions on citizen’s freedom. Therefore, it is the civil and political rights that shall be paid much attention on, relatively, because, according to Kaufmann (2004), improvements of those rights have positive links to those of the others.[1] Being aware of this, liberals around the world have been trying to endorse the first-generation rights in their societies and beyond, specifically by employing and also aiming first for the freedom of expression and then others in spite of so much suppression from governments. Below are some insights of Cambodian’s freedom of expression and threats, followed by unconventional channels of expression that people in the country have increasingly been using.

In Cambodia, people’s right to free expression has been perpetually “undermined.”[2] It is where expression in conventional manners through books, leaflets, newspapers, demonstrations, and even songs are very intimidated as long as the contents are against the government. There have been many cases in which book authors were arrested and journalists were shot to death, and ordinary people do not dare to speak out their mind on the topics of politics, corruption, land grabbing and even facts in their own history in public. “Stop speaking, or else, you might simply vanish.” This is a common warning sentence often heard in abrupt ends of any conversation about politics in daylight public. That is because political intolerance is high, and so is the likelihood of people being arrested and sued by the government on the ground of defamation only because they expression doubts. Self-censorship has become a tradition, both on personal and professional level.

People in general as well as those in the country, however, have become equipped with new ways and a new tradition of expression. The now non-conventional channel of expression is cyber social media. Its significance has grown dramatically in less than a decade. A study done by Box Hill Institution shows that now there are more than 400 million Facebook users, and the average Facebookers, shall they be called, spend almost an hour everyday on the site, posting a huge amount of information and sharing up to 1.5 million contents on each day.[3] The study also tells that the number of Tweet per day has increased drastically from just 50,000 in 2007 to the staggering 50million in 2010. To a regional level, a study conducted recently by Asian Knowledge Institute using Google’s Insight for Search illustrates very intriguing facts about Asia. While there is an overwhelming number of cyber surfers in the continent compared to others, Thailand is the world’s third country with biggest growth of Facebookers.[4] At the same time, Google also indicates that there is, like never before, immensely growing interests in social media in Cambodia.[5]

Cambodia is a place where the Internet is a luxurious service and only most available in the city. The number of Internet subscriber was only 173,675[6], and the number of Cambodia Facebookers is around 250,000[7].  However, all the aforementioned statistics represent not only the freedom but also the power of expression of ordinary citizen here in an unprecedented scale. Even though being used primarily as cyber arenas for “recreation”[8] and even though there is an on-going attempt from the government to regulate the internet,[9] social media has become, to a huge extent, the freest channel, in terms of both the cost and the liberty, for expression.

Unlike in most western countries, people in Cambodia can never ridicule politicians in the ruling party or depict those people in any insulting formats through conventional channels, no matter how true the information is. Recently, there has been a case in which a World Food Program officer was arrested only because he “spread information to others to read.”[10] He merely shared a printed page from an anti-government website, www.ki-media.blogspot.com, to one of his fellow co-workers. Through Facebook, Twitter and, has never been done before, through Wikileaks, even though people have to use fake names or anonymity, people can express whatever they want and share it with their friends. There is interestingly quite a number of people who have been saying extremely harsh words against the government and the leaders. There is a bigger amount of people who have openly said things they otherwise would not say in public. There are people who through Facebook support the opposition party and its politicians while they would not openly reveal so offline. There are also people who publicly announce their support for the opposition party leader; for example, Miss. Theary C. Seng, who is a strong liberal, supports Mr. Sam Rainsy by having his picture as her profile picture until he is allowed to come back to the country without unfair imprisonment—on a border issue. There is too a handful of people who has revealed a lot of the government’s secrets in conventional ways, and they were strongly condemned. However, there has not yet been in Cambodia an enlightened hero like Bradley Manning.

With ever expanding network in social media, more and more people can be reached and hence the freer people become in expression. From this point forward, more and more Cambodia people can better let the world hear their views and concerns. With more liberal education and more wide spread internet coverage, it is believed that they can better express themselves politically and be a part in running their country.

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[1] Kaufmann, D. (2004). Human rights and governments: The empirical challenge. New York University, School of Law: New York.

[2] Human rights organizations (2010). Cambodia gagged: Democracy at risk? Report on freedom of expression in Cambodia. Retrieved March 18, 2011 from http://www.cchrcambodia.org/English/add_report/reports/foex_briefing_note_eng.pdf

[3] Box Hill Institute. (2010). Social media statistics & facts 2010. Retrieved Thursday 10, 2010 from http://www.youtube.com/boxhillinstitute#p/u/30/gQ0wFqNfu7A

[4] Pornwasin, A. (2011, March 08). Thais love Facebook, study by AKI shows. The Nation, p. 6A.

[5] Google Insight for Search. (2011). Cambodia, 2004-present. Web search interest: Facebook.

[6] Ministry of Posts and Telecommunication, Cambodia (2011). ICT development in Cambodia: Challenges, strategies, future. Retrieved March 18, 2011 from http://www.rupp.edu.kh/conference/jcaict/Symposium6Jan2011.pdf

[7] Social Baker (2011). Cambodia Facebook statistic. Retrieved March 18, 2011 from http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/cambodia

[8] Saray, S. et al. (2011). Cambodia communication review. Retrieved March 18, 2011 from Cambodian Economic Review’s website, Social media here more social than political: Research, http://www.voanews.com/khmer-english/news/Social-Media-Here-More-Social-Than-Political-Researcher-116817728.html

[9] Kok, A. (2009). Cambodia drafts law to regulate internet. Retrieved March 18, 2011 from Asia Pacific Future Gov’s website, http://www.futuregov.asia/articles/2009/jan/20/cambodia-drafts-law-regulate-internet/

[10] Thet, S. & Strangio, S. (2011). UN staffer jailed for ‘anti-government’ materials. Phnom Penh Post, Sunday December 19, 2010. Retrieved March 18, 2011 from http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2010121945494/National-news/un-staffer-jailed-for-anti-government-materials.html