Cambodia’s digital surveillance serves to silence the opposition and suppress criticism of the government
Private phone calls and social media posts are being used against individuals
For citizens, such intrusion provides a sinister reminder of the dark days of Pol Pot’s murderous regime
When Sun Bunthon and Nou Phoeun were brought in by police, they were surprised to hear officers read out a transcript of a private phone call, in which the arrestees had encouraged the return of the party’s exiled co-founder, Sam Rainsy, who has been charged with treason and a host of other politically motivated crimes.
The pair’s lawyer, Sam Sokong, declined to speak about the case over the phone, preferring to meet in person. “The CNRP activists feel afraid to converse on their phones,” said Sokong. “I cannot talk about any serious thing on the phone.”
Sokong said he was in the room with his clients when the police read the transcript, and that the police had no warrant giving them permission to record the conversation but they did so anyway because it was a matter of “national security”.
CNRP activists feel afraid to converse on their phones. I cannot talk about any serious thing on the phone
While these were the first arrests definitively linked to phone tapping in more than a year, Cambodia has a long history of pressing criminal charges over private phone conversations. Even before technological advancements allowed the Cambodian government to access its citizens’ phones, surveillance was a part of life.
Coffee vendor Samnang was a young boy when the totalitarian Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia in the mid-1970s, but he still remembers the sinister slogans about Pol Pot’s nascent Communist Party having “the many eyes of a pineapple”.
