Two Cambodian journalists were charged on Saturday with spying for allegedly filing news reports to Washington-based Radio Free Asia amid a sweeping government crackdown on dissent.
The reporters were detained on Tuesday night, days before Cambodia’s main Opposition party was dissolved over accusations it conspired with the U.S. in a treason plot.
Baseless, says Washington
That case was blasted by Washington as baseless and decried by rights groups as hastening the country’s descent into a de facto one-party state under Premier Hun Sen.
The ruling followed months of legal attacks aimed at silencing Mr. Hun Sen’s political rivals, outspoken NGOS and independent media. Radio Free Asia was forced to shut its office after 20 years due to a series of threats.
The former RFA journalists — Oun Chhin and Yeang Sothearin — now face up to 15 years in jail for allegedly running an illegal media studio from a guest house in the capital, according to police.
‘Prosecutor found enough grounds’
After seeing “enough grounds, the prosecutor at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court decided to charge them with providing a foreign state information that is destructive to the national defence,” said court spokesman Ly Sophana.
Mr. Hun Sen has been leaning heavily on anti-American rhetoric to justify the unprecedented clampdown on critics before elections in 2018 which he is now guaranteed to win.
His allegations of a U.S.-backed coup plot have sent relations with Washington into a tailspin.
On Friday, Washington demanded the immediate reversal of the ruling against the Opposition party, which it said had stripped next year’s election of any legitimacy.
