Thank you for your compliments.
  The Government Nom Benh cannot bare the reality of the strongly SUN.
  And also thanks to IT people who've been created the IT TUNNEL --------> Hits 
the Target of the Evilly Regime of Nom Benh in a few minutes.

  Cheers,
  Bun H.


  Dear All,

  Pls. find below a very interesting remark about Sacrava website. Again, Lok 
Sacrava, thank you for a job well done: it looks like the pencil wins over the 
gun after all.

  Best regards,

  MP
  ---------

  January 15, 2009
  Internet exempt from libel law: govt 
  Thursday, 15 January 2009 
  Written by Brendan Brady and Sam Rith 
  The Phnom Penh Post



  Information Ministry denies legislation extending libel to audovisual media 
will limit internet

  The Ministry of Information has denied that new libel legislation it is 
drafting for audiovisual media will bear on the internet, despite previous 
claims by its minister, Khieu Kanharith, that the recent explosion of websites 
was an impetus for the measure.

  In a statement released Tuesday, the ministry said the law would target 
"audiovisual content in radio, television and print only", adding that public 
criticism of it levelled by local journalists earlier in the day was 
"absolutely untruthful". 

  But Sam Rithy Doung Hak, a monitor for the Cambodian Association for the 
Protection of Journalists, the group that condemned the proposed legislation as 
unwarranted censorship, said the ministry was simply "backtracking ... probably 
because of pressure from international groups based here".

  Despite the ministry's claims, he said popular websites and cartoons critical 
of the government would be susceptible to censorship if the law were 
introduced. He singled out the online materials of news aggregator Khmer 
Intelligence and Australian-based Khmer cartoonist Sacrava as potential 
targets. 

  Khieu Kanharith was not available for comment Wednesday.

  Don't regulate criticism

  Local leaders of Cambodia's online community remain deeply cynical of any 
government efforts to regulate media content given its shaky track record. 
Cambodia is currently ranked 128th - or "partially free" - on the US-based 
Freedom House organisation's 2008 press freedom list

  Keo Kounila, a local blogger and journalist, said vibrant opposition voices 
were essential to the fabric of a democracy, and saw the proposed bill as 
counterproductive to growth of the country's nascent political environment. 

  "The government should try to understand criticism [directed at it], not 
regulate it. This is similar to what China is trying to do," she said, 
referring to the vigorous online censorship conducted by the communist state.

  Norbert Klein, a Phnom Penh-based German who is credited with having 
introduced, internet to Cambodia in 1994, called the proposed legislation "very 
problematic".

  "If there is legislation, it should be technically enforceable and legal. 
Neither is the case." 
  The demands of the law were unrealistic and unprecedented, he added.

  "When the law says every ISP will need a license from the Information 
Ministry and Communication Ministry, no other country in the world has that," 
said Klein, who is also a policy adviser for ICANN, an international non-profit 
group that deliberates on a wide range of internet protocol issues. He said 
media censorship was susceptible to "escalation" in times of political turmoil 
and questioned the government's ability to regulate content using standards 
accepted by the population.



  


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