The Ministry of Information suspended the Voice of Khmer Youth newspaper from publication for
30 days following a Friday article that was critical of members of the royal family, Funcinpec Minister of Information Lu Laysreng said Sunday.
The article alleged that Queen Norodom Monineath and her son, Prince Norodom Sihamoni, had often visited Prime Minister Hun Sen at his house.
The Royal Palace, in a statement on Friday, said the article was “delusionally written” and was “completely wrong.” It said the prince had been in France until Aug 4 and that when the Queen leaves the palace, it is on behalf of the King.
The statement also said the Royal Palace would file a court complaint. A separate statement from the palace said it had made a request to the ministry to suspend the newspaper.
Keo Sothea, editor-in-chief of the opposition Voice of Khmer Youth, learned about the suspension Friday night after he had already sent Saturday’s edition to the printers. The Saturday paper contained a correction based on information received from the Royal Palace. The suspension began Sunday.
“The Ministry of Information shouldn’t punish me because I have already made the correction,” he said Sunday.
Though Keo Sothea said suspending the paper was an abuse of the press law, he said he would obey the suspension.
He said there is no law that can punish a newspaper that had already printed a correction, but said he had no choice but to follow the order.
“If I still print the newspaper, the Ministry of Information will confiscate the newspapers” from newsstands, he said. “It will create more tension.”
He said he would write a letter to the King today to apologize and ask permission to resume publication.
Keo Sothea said he would have his lawyer file a complaint against the ministry for not offering an “appropriate reason to suspend my newspaper” sometime in the near future.
Ministry of Information Secretary of State Khieu Kanharith told Deutsche Presse-Agentur on Saturday that a suspension could be carried out only with a court order.
“Suspending a newspaper before a court order is against the rules of the Information Ministry,” he told DPA.
Khieu Kanharith could not be reached for further comment on Sunday.
According to a letter signed by Oum Daravuth, Funcinpec secretary of state for the Ministry of Information, “The Voice of Khmer Youth has published an article which seriously affects the King’s reputation using false information.”
Article 7 of the Constitution forbids criticism of the King. But sections of the Constitution having to do with the Queen—Articles 15 and 16—do not state that she is “inviolable.”
Keo Sothea said Friday that the article was “not a serious defamation because it is a political issue.”
But the King wrote in a statement in February that verbal disputes “between Khmer politicians…are not related to the throne except when there is an attack on the King, Queen or the institution of the monarchy.”
In a separate letter to the Ministry of Interior, Oum Daravuth requested that the Aug 15 edition be removed from newsstands.
Pen Samithy, president of the Club of Cambodian Journalists and editor-in-chief of Rasmei Kampuchea (Light of Cambodia), said the Ministry of Information shouldn’t punish the newspaper after it printed a correction. “The problem should be finished,” he said Sunday.
He said the club would try to persuade the ministry to lift the suspension and allow the newspaper to continue printing.
In April 2002, the Voice of Khmer Youth had to pay thousands of dollars in damages to the Mong Reththy Group corporation and RCAF Division 44 for quoting a Global Witness report that they had been involved in illegal logging.
In March 2002, the King asked the Ministry of Interior to chastise the newspaper Sangkros Cheat (National Salvation) for stating that he funneled money to Funcinpec.
In a later article the newspaper wrote that it had not been referring to King Sihanouk, but to a fictional king in a play.
The King in recent years has been an advocate of a free press and has stepped in on several occasions to help journalists. In 1994, he requested that “no sanction at all be taken against such and such a periodical or journalist guilty of criticizing me.”
(Additional reporting by Alex Halperin)
