Authorities arrive on the Voice of Democracy workplace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Monday, Feb. 13.

Heng Sinith/AP

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Heng Sinith/AP

Authorities arrive on the Voice of Democracy workplace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Monday, Feb. 13.

Heng Sinith/AP

One among Cambodia’s final remaining impartial information organizations, Voice of Democracy (VOD), has ceased operations after strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen revoked its media license over the weekend, forcing all broadcasts off air.

Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered the shutdown after saying VOD printed “incorrect data” involving his son, Hun Manet, a lieutenant normal and a high-level commander of the Royal Cambodian Military.

The radio station had beforehand reported that Lt. Gen. Hun Manet, a authorities deputy who is about to succeed his father as prime minister, allegedly signed off on $100,000 of support to Turkey final week — an motion that Prime Minister Hun Sen claimed solely he has the authority to hold out.

Earlier on Sunday, VOD posted an apology on Fb and stated it could ship its official apology letter to the prime minister’s workplace the following morning.

However in a response additionally posted to Fb, the Cambodian chief stated that the Feb. 9 report offended each him and his son, and the prime minister refused to just accept VOD’s apology, including that the newsroom’s employees ought to search for jobs elsewhere.

All broadcasts got here to a cease Monday at 10 a.m. native time.

Launched in 2003, the Phnom Penh-based nonprofit radio station was run by nongovernmental group Cambodian Middle for Unbiased Media. It publishes in each Khmer and English. Free press advocates stated VOD was ceaselessly essential of the federal government and its crackdown on human rights.

Cambodia continues its crackdown on media

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2017

Heng Sinith/AP

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Heng Sinith/AP

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2017

Heng Sinith/AP

Worldwide rights organizations condemned the shutdown, which comes months forward of the Cambodia’s nationwide elections in July. Prime Minister Hun Sen is anticipated to win amid the Folks’s Get together crackdown on opposition teams and dissent.

“Going after VOD is an efficient indication that scheduled July 23 ballot might be neither free nor truthful,” stated Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson in a press release.

VOD’s closure comes after a broader crackdown on Cambodia’s free press.

In 2017, the Cambodia Each day — one of many nation’s last-remaining impartial media retailers — was pressured to shut after the federal government ordered it to pay a $6.3 million tax invoice.

And in 2018, a number of senior staffers exited the Phnom Penh Publish, one of many oldest English-language publications in Cambodia, after the paper’s sale to a Malaysian businessman who was a director at a public relations agency with ties to the Cambodian authorities.

Dozens gathered in Phnom Penh Monday to protest VOD’s closure.

“We’re deeply troubled by the abrupt resolution to revoke Voice of Democracy’s (VOD) media license,” stated the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia in a press release.

“A free and impartial press performs a essential position in a functioning democracy, offering the general public and decisionmakers with information and holding governments to account.”