Banteay Meanchey Provincial Police arrested a 31-year-old woman on Saturday for making an allegedly insulting comment aimed at Prime Minister Hun Sen on a Fresh News article posted to Facebook.
Provincial Police Chief Ath Khem said Mao Linda was arrested Saturday night in Poipet and would be sent to court today. “She has insulted a leader on Facebook. She has confessed that it is her Facebook account and to the allegations,” he said.
Fresh News posted a news article to its Facebook account about a Hun Sen speech that was critical of the US bombing of Cambodia in the 1970s. Linda, whose Facebook name is Linda GiGi, instead attacked Hun Sen for being a “betrayer”.
“Cambodia does not accept Ah Hun Sen’s family that cut off and sold the land of the King Father. You are a national betrayer,” the comment read, using a Khmer term meaning “contemptible”.
Recently the premier has been sensitive to rumours circulating on social media, and authorities have not hesitated to arrest individuals for making “death threats” and insulting comments.
Legal expert Sok Sam Oeun said the law allowed for such complaints to be filed but that it would be received with mockery elsewhere. “In the US, if politicians file a lawsuit like this then [people] will laugh their heads off at them.”
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