Copies of a controversial booklet on the life and death of Cambodia’s most famous actress and classical Khmer dancer, Piseth Pilika, have sold out, just days after vendors began hawking them outside the Sam Rainsy Party Headquarters, party officials said.
Around 6,000 copies of the booklet were sold to passers by this week after plain clothes and uniformed police confiscated the booklets from newspaper stands in Phnom Penh. The books were sold at a price of 1,000 riel, with vendors selling them under the watchful eyes of Sam Rainsy Party staffers
Sam Rainsy said on Friday he has written a letter to the government demanding to know who ordered the booklet’s removal and on what grounds.
“If the is no answer [to the letter] it means they know it was totally illegal to seize,” Sam Rainsy said.
Ministry of Information officials said on Tuesday the confiscation was not sanctioned by their ministry and the censorship and removal of a publication from book stands requires a court order.
Piseth Pilika was shot three times in the back on a busy street corner in Phnom Penh on July 6, 1999, and died after losing a week-long battle to survive the assassin’s bullets.
The 12-page publication contains extracts from the slain star’s alleged personal diaries in which she details an illicit love affair with a high-ranking government official and threats against her life by the official’s jealous wife.
Government officials have accused opposition party members of attempting to politicize the starlet’s death ahead of July General Elections.
