Government officials yesterday said that billboards displayed around Phnom Penh by a US-based evangelical group touting the May 21 coming of the apocalypse have not received necessary licensing and are illegal.
The Khmer-language billboards bought by Family Radio depict a silhouette of a man begging for forgiveness and state in large bold letters, “Judgment Day, May 21, 2011,” and “The Bible Guarantees It.”
Chin Por, the municipal director of commercial advertising, said the content of billboards in Phnom Penh must first be submitted to the municipality and approved.
“I did not see any requesting documents from the billboards’ owner, and I don’t know why they never made the request,” he said. “If the billboards involve a political meaning, they are not allowed to be put up, while religious meanings must be cleared with the Ministry of Cults and Religions.”
Family Radio also failed to register its apocalyptic message with the Ministry of Cults and Religions, which by law must approve the content of any religious message before it is broadcast.
“If they were [approved], I would know about it,” said Dok Narin, undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Cults and Religions. “I think the broadcast of such a message is illegal with both our religious laws and national laws. We will be researching the problem.”
Cambo Advertising Company, the agency used to place the billboards, said the five billboards around Phnom Penh, including one on the roof of Phsar Doeum Kor market in Tuol Kok district, had been up for more than two months.
“I don’t know whether the owner requested through the ministry or not. I’m just the person who built it,” said Pol Sopheap, managing general director of Cambo.
Family Radio claims on its website that its Cambodian ads are a part of a global campaign of more than 2,000 advertisements in 61 languages worldwide. According to the website, the group is neither a church nor a religion, but a nonprofit organization with irrefutable knowledge of the coming of Jesus. It says Jesus warned of the “the devastating moral breakdown of society.”
Cambo said the billboards will be taken down once the contract ends on Saturday, May 21.
