Cambodian bloggers say a new government ban on Internet cafes near schools could mean the elimination of Phnom Penh cyber cafes altogether.

The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications has issued a circular banned Internet cafes within 500 meters of any school. It also bans Internet use to people under the age of 18 and “outlines numerous dangers that the Internet poses, such as terrorism, economic crimes and the distribution of pornography,” the Cambodian Daily reported.

The rights group Licadho points out that the new ministry circular would mean “a near-complete” ban on cyber cafes.

Tep Sovichet, a 17-year-old high school student and a blogger, says he has little reason to support the new measure. Not all cyber cafes are online gaming centers, he wrote in a blog post in Khmer language recently. Many of them are resource centers, where students and others come to learn, regardless of their age, and where they have access to news and information from a variety of sources.

Tep Sovichet, who hopes to become a computer programmer and web developer, says having the cafes near schools also improves school attendance.

A blogger at KhmerBird.com writes: “I totally support the ideas behind this circular. But I think to restrict games and pornography form those Internet cafes, it is not necessary to close the Internet cafes.”

Licadho Director Naly Pilorge called the ministry’s circular a “heavy-handed effort to shut down affordable and accessible venues for using the Internet in Cambodia.” It “is not only legally unfounded,” she said. “It is a transparent attempt to block part of the population’s access to independent sources of information through news sites and social media.”

Map produced by LICADHO showing 500-meter buffer zones from education institutions (black squares)

Related links:
Internet Users Fear Online Suppression With Draft of Cyber Law

Internet Freedom in Cambodia – A Timeline

Just as rights activists have turned to the Web to advocate against land grabs, a group of filmmakers are using online capabilities to distribute a film that has been banned from distribution in Cambodia.

“Who Killed Chea Vichea,” which examines the murder of the labor activist in 2004 has been prohibited from distribution in the country. It has also been banned directly from private screenings on a number of occasions.

Now the filmmakers have made it available for free online.

I wrote to Rich Garella, one of the producers, to find out who he hoped would find the movie and watch it.

“People can download it anywhere in the world, unless they live in a country that violates human rights by limiting freedom of expression,” he said in an e-mail. “Governments that are afraid of the truth always have good reason to be afraid of the truth. In blocking the free movement of information they show their true nature.”

The document is an indictment of the judicial process following the attack on Chea Vichea, a hugely popular union leader who was killed in broad daylight in the middle of Phnom Penh. Two men who were widely believed innocent, Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, were held in prison for years, despite evidence they should have been exonerated, for the crime.

Government officials, meanwhile, have said the film cannot be imported to Cambodia or screened in the country, in an attempt to keep the public from viewing a film that would embarrass the police and the courts, Garella said.

“But under what legal authority do these officials make these declarations?” he wrote. “Where is it written in law or regulation? And how could such a law or regulation, or even a statement that some official thinks up on the spot, be legal when it conflicts with both the Cambodian Constitution and the International Declaration of Human Rights?”

“If these decisions come from personal authority and not legal authority, it would be a feature of a dictatorship,” he wrote. “Only in a dictatorship are one person’s orders above the law.”

Cambodia’s laws require freedom of information, he said. Meanwhile, thousands of films have been shown in Cambodia without a similar ban.

“As far as I know this is the only film in recent history that has received this treatment,” he said. “So my conclusion is that the government is very worried about this case.”

U.S. filmmaker Rich Garella spoke recently about his documentary ‘Who Killed Chea Vichea?’ with VOA Khmer’s Men Kimseng.

Suggested links:
Chea Vichea Documentary Banned at Freedom Park

Sam Rainsy Party Plans Screening of Chea Vichea Film

Chea Vichea Film Prompts Questions in US

Banned film an internet hit

With the advent of blogging platforms that are easy to launch and maintain, Cambodia’s rights activists are making use of the Internet to get their message out to a wider audience. In less than five minutes, nearly anyone can create a blog, whether its about his or her personal life as a university student or as an online outlet to aggregate issues facing Cambodia today.

Probably the first blog to call international attention to ongoing land issues in Cambodia is the “Save Boeung Kak Campaign,” maintained by the Housing Rights Task Force, a coalition of non-governmental advocates for housing rights in Phnom Penh. The blog features a petition to halt forced evictions and provides updates on this controversial issue, following World Bank warnings last month the international agency would freeze aid to Cambodia “until the government reaches a deal with thousands of residents who are under threat of eviction in a huge development project.”

By pulling together news stories from far-reaching outlets, the blog makes it easier for people to follow this eviction in particular.

But the “Save Boeung Kak Campaign” blog is not alone. More blogs are appearing on the Internet calling for support. Among them are “Prey Lang: It’s YOUR Forest Too,” “CambodiaTrainspotter,” and “Sahrika.”

Suggested links:
Prey Lang Activists Petition Internationals for Help

While most of the Internet users in Cambodia are on networking site Facebook, “Twitter is growing in leaps and bounds,” said a founder of TweetCambodia, which aggregates tweets with hashtag #cambodia.

“Cambodia has a very phone-centric culture and that’s suited well to Twitter use. We are seeing a lot more sophistication in the use of it, including the use of Khmer Unicode which is particularly interesting,” John Weeks added.

With 800 people following his micro-blogging account on Twitter, John Weeks admitted that followers seek out “content and opinion. That’s probably why my follow list is smaller than the @PhnomPenhPost, or entertainers like @MeasSokSophea”.

Despite “Facebook is more entertaining with tons of applications and Cambodian people like them, Twitter user Y Samphy says “A lot of breaking news about Cambodia also can be found on Twitter first. For example, twits about Cambodia stampede at Koh Pich while it was happening were lightening fast”.

In an email response, John Weeks also said that “Earlier this year much of the discussion over the alleged blocking of KI-Media was driven via Twitter. I expect to see Twitter grow as a tool for sourcing and sharing news. But it can also spread rumors like wildfire. How do you fact-check and verify a tweet?”

Since the United Nations has declared that “Internet access is a human right,” it’s hard to imagine how Cambodia, a country of low Internet penetration, will provide greater access to people across the country.

In a previous blog post, I pointed out a UN report that calls for “greater Internet freedoms” and declares that “Internet access is a human right.” Provided that Cambodia has this strong mobile network infrastructure, connecting Cambodians to the Internet via mobile devices means to foster rights to information as well as Net access.

Mobile subscribers could potentially be Internet users. The mobile technology is arguably the strategic means of increasing the number of Net users.

Norbert Klein, a veteran known for introducing e-mail communication system to Cambodia in the early 1990s, told me via Facebook chat that, “in many countries with a weak infrastructure the number of mobile phones is much much higher than internet users”.

There are nine mobile network service providers that serve more than half of Cambodia’s 14 million people, according to a recent report from the BBC. However, Cambodia could see a significant boost in the next few years, thanks in part to easy-to-connect technology like mobile Internet and more content in Khmer language. Like any other country, Cambodia’s demand to consume content like news, information and entertainment creates a necessity for people to go online.

A report by ITU, a United Nations agency that specializes in Information and Communication Technologies, found that

“Cambodia is a textbook example of wireless boosting telecommunication development. It was the first country in the world where mobile telephone subscribers overtook fixed ones back in 1993. Cambodia began the millennium with more than four out of five telephone subscribers using a wireless phone, the highest ratio in the world.”

“When the ISPs provide high speed access at lower prices – then an expensive computer is not necessary,” added Klein, who regularly comments on Internet and freedom of expression on his blog at http://www.thinking21.org/.

Suggested links:
Cambodia: Databank

Telecommunication development in South East Asia

In pictures: Cambodia’s booming mobile phone market

Bun Tharum, Phnom Penh

Despite lacking official support from the mobile operating system Android, Cambodian developers here could exploit the code released by Google to make Khmer-language websites readable, a high demand from mobile net users.

In a country like Cambodia, Google’s Android-powered smart phones could provide an alternative solution to most people, compared to higher-end phones like Blackberry or iPhone.

Based on the free and open source Linux, Android smart phones are currently the world’s best-selling.

Here, for the Android mobile platform, which doesn’t properly render the interchangeable Khmer text yet, a third-party app is an ideal solution. Recently released, the Radio Free Asia Khmer Reader app makes it possible for platform users to read RFA’s Khmer-language site.

Thim Chanrithy, the developer, told me that in order to make Khmer text readable, he has to hack the system. The app, version 0.4, is available for download for free.

Without this small software on Android-powered phones, readability is an issue facing Cambodian users. The text on the mobile devices appears unreadable.

These users, however, have already figured out a way to express the message content using Latin as a mean to represent Khmer characters and words. This is increasingly popular among young Cambodians to hit conversation when they’re on social networking sites like Facebook. A user wrote: “klean nas,but nov office leoy…:-( ” (“Hungry now, but still in the office.”)

Cambodia’s Android user group is an online discussion board where more than one hundred people are members actively discussing ways to develop tools as they “need Khmer language on Android,” which hasn’t officially supported by US company Google.

While Android platform users are lagging behind in terms of technical issues, there is good news for Apple users, for whom the newest operating system, Lion, has recently expanded native supports for Khmer Unicode.

This technical barrier goes back to as early as 2002 when a journalist for The Cambodia Daily humorously explained:
[block quote]
“A government minister asked the man who established the first e-mail system in Cambodia if he could send an e-mail in Khmer to his wife, who didn’t speak English. He was told he couldn’t. That’s still the answer, more or less, seven years after e-mail came to Cambodia and five years after the arrival of the Internet. The people who designed the early computers didn’t speak Khmer, so the computers don’t speak it either.”

Suggested links:
Radio Free Asia Khmer Reader app

Cambodia Takes on US Software Giants in Battle for Khmer Computer Script

CAUG (Cambodia Android Users Group) – We need Khmer language on Android