A Cambodian reporter was charged with defamation and thrown in jail because he misspelled someone’s name, local media reported on Monday.
In a story last week about a conflict between market vendors and a local police chief in Siem Reap province, Teng Mara, a reporter for the Khmer-language newspaper Cochinchine, misspelled a vendor’s name. His typo soon saw him swapping his desk for a jail cell.
The paper’s editor Yan Sidara said the arrest had nothing to do with Teng Mara’s spelling error but was a clear warning not to write about the dispute.
”It was a small mistake,” he told the English-language Cambodia Daily.
On Monday, the Khmer Journalists for Democracy Association sent a petition to the United Nations, Cambodia’s King, and to the Ministry of Information, requesting that they intervene on Teng Mara’s behalf.
”We want our reporter released and we need help from these people to do so,” said Sok Sovan, deputy chief for the association.
”Our reporter did nothing wrong, nothing against the press law,” Sok Sovan said. ”He just made a spelling mistake. He should not be put in jail.”
Sok Sovan also said that the association would file a complaint with the appeals court, as it believes the charges against Teng Mara were legally unsound. – Sapa-DPA