Dual Passport Dilemma, Reopening On Horizon, Girls With Guns Draw Fire
Good morning, Cambodia. It's Friday, October 15, and this is your Weekly Dispatch.
VIDEO VIXENS: School girl uniforms. Automatic weapons. Legions of online critics. What could possibly go wrong?
SPECIAL NEEDS: The verdict was postponed for the autistic teen in jail for a Telegram chat that angered authorities.
RADICAL PROSE: Post provocative poetry on Hun Sen’s Facebook page at your own risk. An activist is feeling the heat.
THE LEDE
REAM DISPUTE
Phnom Penh traded barbs with Washington over Chinese-backed construction at the Kingdom’s largest naval base.
Satellite photos by U.S. researchers showed three buildings and a road being built at Ream Naval Base off the coast of Preah Sihanoukville province.
Cambodia described the construction as development assistance. Washington said the whole process lacked transparency and demanded China and the Kingdom come clean on their intentions.
The Wall Street Journal reported in 2019 that Cambodia had secretly agreed to give the Chinese military exclusive access to Ream. Cambodia strongly denied the allegations, but it has refused to grant U.S. officials full access to the area.
REOPENING REDUX
Is the Great Reopening finally at hand? Probably not.
Prime Minister Hun Sen last week said if Covid-19 infection rates remained low after the Pchum Ben holiday, the country would move forward with reopening to international tourists.
It’s been a week, and officials have passed edicts, established working groups, relaxed health restrictions and stopped counting asymptomatic infections, all in a bid to prepare for international tourism.
Even so, officials suggested the government would not make a decision until December, at the earliest.
WITH A BULLET
A music video featuring school girls and machine guns was too much for the Kingdom’s vociferous online hecklers. But was it criminal?
The online outrage prompted the video’s production company, owned by a well-connected land tycoon, to pull the song off the internet. But cultural officials, often quick to throw shade on anything mildly salacious, seemed surprisingly unconcerned.
Similar cases involving less-connected individuals resulted in some people behind bars.
The courts last year convicted a clothes vendor on pornography charges for wearing revealing outfits while selling products online. In 2017, authorities sentenced a monk in Battambang to two years in prison on incitement charges for posing with a toy gun — like the girls in the video.
TALKING POINTS
FESTIVAL ADRIFT
Cambodia cancelled its annual Water Festival, a centuries-old boat-racing celebration marking the end of the monsoon season. It’s the second straight year authorities have scrapped the popular event because of the pandemic.
PASSPORT FRACAS
Cambodia approved a draft law banning citizens with dual citizenship from holding high government positions. The British press last week mistakenly reported Hun Sen having bought a Cypriot passport, prompting fierce backlash and promises from the prime minister to amend the constitution.
REBEL POET
Police are in hot pursuit of a “rebel” who wrote violent poetry on Hun Sen’s Facebook page. The author, a former CNRP member living in Thailand, vowed to continue criticizing the prime minister’s policies. The strongman vowed to “eliminate” him.
ACTIVIST THREATS
The court sentenced an environmental activist from the Prey Lang Community Network to two years in prison for intentional violence. Rights groups said the conviction fit a pattern of legal and physical threats against members of the group.
AUTISTIC TEEN
The court postponed a verdict in the case of an autistic teenager detained in Prey Sar prison. Authorities charged the boy with incitement in June for messages he sent in a private Telegram chat. He is the son of a CNRP activist who is also in Prey Sar for incitement.
HEART STRINGS
He Chun Sek, a renowned Golden Era violinist who played with Sinn Sisamouth, the iconic Khmer crooner, died from Covid-19 on Sunday. He was 82.
LOST HERITAGE
Tep Mary, a master kong toch player who performed in the Royal Palace and helped rebuild the ancient Khmer art form of pin peat, passed away Saturday. She was 90.
BACKPAGES: From The Cambodia Daily Vault
King Denies Knowing Saloth Sar Was KR Leader Pol Pot
October 15, 2001
In his 14th written critique of the book “Warrior Prince,” King Norodom Sihanouk further denies having conspired with the Khmer Rouge in the early 1970s to solidify his own power.
Government To Start Demobilization Effort
October 15, 2001
The government is ready to transfer 400 soldiers from military service to civilian life today in Kompong Chhnang in what officials are calling the first phase in a massive demobilization effort.
Fraudulent US Visa Applications Spark Probe
October 12, 2001
Ministry of Tourism and US Embassy officials are investigating allegedly fraudulent visa applications submitted in recent months on government letterhead to the US Embassy, according to officials at the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.