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Article

31 Aug 2016

"We don't care, we're still in power"

...The Hun family response was characteristically cynical. Within hours, three of the premier’s children had already taken to Facebook, accusing Global Witness of politically-motivated lies...

Hun Sen swiftly followed suit, posting a set of photos of himself and his children all raising a glass in his office – a message interpreted by many to mean, “We don’t care, we’re still in power.”...

Later in the day, the pro-government Fresh News website published an anonymous letter and accompanying cartoon which highlighted the culture of intimidation and fear surrounding freedom of expression in Cambodia. The cartoon was a doctored version of Nazi propaganda from 1943 showing Roosevelt and Churchill helping Stalin to execute a woman who symbolised peace on a ‘Jewish chopping block’. In this version, the war-time leaders were replaced with logos of Global Witness, the Phnom Penh Post and Cambodia Daily, with the Star of David substituted for the Cambodian flag. The accompanying letter threatened to kick both media outlets out of Cambodia...

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