Cambodian reporters charged with spying granted bail

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – Two Cambodian journalists who had worked for U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia and are charged with espionage were released Tuesday on bail, a day after a pardon freed four land rights activists from prison.

Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin, better known by his professional name of Yeang Socheameta, were arrested last November and charged with undermining national security by supplying information to a foreign state. The two journalists were also later charged with producing pornography after police said they found pornographic images on their computers. They face possible prison terms of up to 15 years.

Their arrests were seen as part of a crackdown on the media and political opponents ahead of last month's general election.

The election, swept by Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling party, was widely considered unfair because the only credible opposition party was dissolved by the courts last year.

This week's releases appear to demonstrate clemency to soften international criticism of the government. Cambodia's courts have a reputation for treating critics of the government harshly, while treading softly on well-connected allies of the ruling party.

Hun Sen has a record of using a carrot and stick approach with his foes, cracking down harshly when facing a serious challenger, and then effecting a reconciliation when he no longer feels threatened. The pattern of cracking down, then relenting, also appears intended to keep his critics — such as the U.S. and EU, along with international human rights organizations — off balance.

On Monday, a prominent leader of Cambodia's land rights movement and three female activists imprisoned with her were freed under a royal pardon requested by Hun Sen. Tep Vanny had led protests against evictions from the capital's Boeng Kak lakeshore community, where the government granted a land concession to a Cambodian tycoon and a Chinese company to develop a luxury residential and commercial community.

In September last year , Radio Free Asia's Phnom Penh bureau closed its office in Cambodia after operating for 20 years, citing government intimidation of the media which it said had reached an "unprecedented level." By the end of last year, the government had closed more than a dozen radio stations — some of which had rebroadcast Radio Free Asia's programs — and the independent English-language newspaper The Cambodia Daily was forced to shut down.

The two reporters were no longer working for RFA after their office closed, and police initially said they had been detained for running an unlicensed karaoke studio. But they were later accused of setting up a studio for RFA and charged with espionage.

A spokesman for the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, Ei Rin, said Tuesday it had issued an order for the release on bail of the two journalists as requested by their lawyer.

The pair walked out of Prey Sar prison Tuesday evening and were greeted by several dozen friends and family members.

"Frankly speaking, we are not fully receiving our freedom because we must still present ourselves upon police request," Yeang Sothearin told journalists outside the prison. "We are continuing to urge the court to drop all charges against us so that we can do our jobs, living our lives as other people do."

His colleague, Uon Chhin, vowed to stay in his profession.

"I love my job as a journalist," he said in response to a reporter's question.

The two went to a Buddhist temple to get a monk's blessings, a rite meant to get rid of bad luck.

Their detention had been sharply criticized by rights groups and journalists' associations. The Southeast Asian Press Alliance called the charges against them "a direct assault on freedom of the media and designed to frighten other journalists into silence."

Hun Sen has been in office since 1985 and has held a tight grip on power since ousting a co-prime minister in a bloody 1997 coup. Although Cambodia, ravaged by the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, is now nominally a democratic state, its institutions remain fragile and the rule of law weak.