Two online journalists in Cambodia have been charged with treason after posting reports about the country’s border dispute with Thailand. Rights groups warn that the case highlights an increasingly fragile environment for media freedom.
According to the human rights group Licadho, Porn Sopheap and Pheap Pheara from TSP68 TV Online were arrested on July 31 after returning from an assignment in Oddar Meanchey province near the border. Authorities accuse them of “providing information to a foreign state that could endanger national defence,” an offence under Article 445 of the penal code that carries a prison sentence of seven to fifteen years.
The pair were formally charged by the Siem Reap provincial court and placed in pre-trial detention at the provincial prison. On September 1, Pheap Pheara’s wife, Om Sarath, posted a video on TSP68 TV’s Facebook page apologising to Senate president Hun Sen and Prime Minister Hun Manet while pleading for intervention in her husband’s case.
Observers are now watching closely to see whether the two Cambodians could also face the loss of their citizenship under the country’s newly amended nationality law, which allows revocation following treason convictions unless pardoned by Hun Sen.
Licadho said it is still unclear which social media posts triggered the charges. One photograph shows the journalists standing with Cambodian soldiers in front of Ta Krabey temple shortly after the July 28 ceasefire, with landmines visible in the background. The image was later republished by Thai media without location details.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranks Cambodia 161st out of 180 countries in its 2025 World Press Freedom Index, a decline from 151st place the year before. The group cited the killing of a journalist covering illegal logging in Siem Reap and a string of arrests linked to social media posts as evidence of mounting risks for reporters.
The treason charges against Porn Sopheap and Pheap Pheara, rights groups argue, mark another step in the erosion of press freedoms in Cambodia, where critical reporting increasingly comes under threat of criminal sanction.
