Minister: Police Should Check Cafes for Porn

As part of a new push to enforce social morality, the government may soon have local authorities monitor activities inside Internet shops to stop the viewing of pornography, officials said Friday.

Minister of Post and Telecom­mun­ications So Khun said in a telephone interview that he is pushing for the police to take up the role of Internet monitors.

“Police should inspect and educate,” he said of Internet shop customers who download smut.

So Khun said that while locally hosted Web sites can be screened for pornography on line, Cam­bodia does not have the resources to screen international Web sites—a task requiring more than 100,000 civil servants surfing the Internet full-time in China .

Instead, police should watch what goes on in Cam­bo­dia’s estimated 1,000 Internet cafes, he said.

The ministry is part of a Social Morality, Women’s Values and Khmer Families Committee that has Prime Minister Hun Sen’s wife Bun Rany as its honorary chairman. The committee was created on Aug 23.

This year, Hun Sen banned a Miss Cambo­dia contest and 3G videophones due to pornography concerns

MPTC Inspection Department Director Chiem Sangva said that 3G phones are not as much of a problem as the Internet.

“I saw kids and some monks surfing pages and watching porn and sex pictures on the Internet,” he said, of a recent visit to a cafe.

Women’s Affairs Minister Ing Kantha Phavy, the chairman of the morality committee, said it will meet soon and may welcome So Khun’s proposal.

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