Ministry of Information Spokesperson has written an open letter to the clarification of a misleading article by CamboJA and requested their public response. Below is the literal translation of the letter into English.

“As the spokesperson of the Ministry of Information, I would like to send this open letter to CamboJA News and Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association that always self-claim as an independent journalism organisation which respects professional journalism ethics.

In an English article published on Aug. 5, 2022 at 5:40PM on your web page and Facebook under the headline that says ‘UN says press freedom in Cambodia remains severely restricted’ authored by Khuon Narim in the 16th paragraph, it wrote that ‘Information Ministry spokesperson, Meas Sophorn, rejected the OHCHR findings, saying they came only from interviews with anti-government journalists and didn’t reflect the overall reality of the media in the country.’

On this point (the mentioned paragraph), I would like to throw some questions to this news agency:

1. When writing such a phrase which part of the six clarification points that I had made to the press did you quote from, particularly when you mentioned ‘...they came only from interviews with anti-government journalists’ as I did not say that at all?

2. What is the real intention of your team to write an article that distorts the fact like this?

3. When you are distorting the fact like this, how can you claim yourself as an independent, professional press that respects the journalism ethics?

Through this open response, I would like to ask your agency to make clarification to the public and request the public to help judge what kind of news agency it is? I would like to attach my response to CamboJA.”

Source: Agency Kampuchea Press