The announcement by Cambodian journalist Mech Dara that he will quit journalism after his recent arrest shows how effective legal threats are in silencing media, say analysts.
Dara, who worked for several media outlets, made a name for himself as an investigative reporter, including by exposing illegal scam centers that operate in Cambodia and have links to powerful interests.
In September, authorities arrested the journalist and charged him with incitement related to social media posts. He spent over 30 days in pretrial detention and could still face up to two years in prison if convicted.
The arrest of one of Cambodia’s best-known journalists brought an outpouring of protest from the international community. Dara acknowledged that support when he was released on bail on October 24.
But in an interview with the Agence France-Presse not long after, the journalist said he had "no more courage" and planned to quit journalism. In the interview, Dara said he was "still afraid" after the arrest and questioning.
Experts have long said that jailing journalists or threatening legal action has become an effective way to silence reporting. For analysts, Dara’s case, coming after a yearslong crackdown on media, underscores the challenges for media working in difficult environments.
“Dara’s decision to quit journalism speaks volumes about the state of press freedom in Cambodia,” Beh Lih Yi, the Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, told VOA via email.
“It is worrying that Cambodia is losing more and more independent journalists. The right thing for Cambodia to do is to allow the media to operate and report freely in the country,” she said.
VOA contacted the Cambodian government’s press office and its Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment by email but didn’t receive a reply.
Cambodia’s press freedom environment has declined rapidly since 2017, when pressure from the government led to more than 30 independent news outlets closing and several journalists being detained.
In the years since, other journalists have been imprisoned for charges that include false news or incitement over their coverage or social media posts. In 2023, three media outlets were stripped of their licences. One of them, Voice of Democracy, was one of the country’s last independent media outlets.
Nop Vy, the executive director at CamboJA, the Cambodian Journalist Alliance, said the number of reporters being targeted is growing.
“Legal threat has increased more than double if compared to the 9-month report last year and this year released by CamboJA,” Vy told VOA via email.
“Some journalists who have been [actively] reporting on deforestation, land conflict, illegal logging, human rights issues, have experiences with court cases which more or less have created more challenges for them,” he said.
Since the start of the year, CamboJa has recorded 28 cases of harassment, including legal intimidation.
Alongside legal threats, journalists covering the scam centers that Dara helped to expose have previously told VOA of the security risks they encountered.
Jacob Sims, an expert on transnational crime, said that Dara’s arrest concluded a crackdown on independent journalists who reported on the scam center issues.
“[Dara’s] arrest can only be viewed as a 2½-year project of systematic repression,” Sims told an event at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand in November.
Aleksandra Bielakowska, advocacy officer at media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, known as RSF, said arrests send a chilling message to other journalists.
“By repressing journalists such as Mech Dara, the Cambodian government sent a chilling message and directly threatens any remaining independent journalists in the country,” she told VOA.
“The Cambodian government draws inspiration from the practices of other authoritarian regimes, which views journalists as mouthpieces for authorities,” she said, adding that it “suppresses any independent voices.”
According to the RSF latest press freedom index, Asia is the second-most difficult region for journalism. Four countries in the region — Myanmar, China, North Korea and Vietnam — are among the world’s 10 most repressive countries for media. Cambodia ranks 151 out of 180 on the Press Freedom Index, where 1 shows the best environment.
