STATEMENT ON THE EXCLUSION OF JOURNALIST GERALD FLYNN FROM CAMBODIA

The professional membership of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand is deeply concerned by the refusal of Cambodian authorities to allow reporter Gerald Flynn re-entry in January after he was blacklisted in November and told to leave the country.

This is another nail in the coffin of the free press in Cambodia, which has seen local and foreign journalists severely intimidated in recent years and numerous news organizations driven out of business.

Journalism in Cambodia is a dangerous and thankless profession. Chhoeung Chheng of online Kampuchea Aphiwat News was murdered in early December for his reporting on unchecked logging in Siem Reap province.

Mech Dara, one of Cambodia's best known investigative journalists, and a recipient of the US State Department's 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report Hero Award for his work exposing "pig butchering" scam centres operating in Cambodia, has quit the profession. He was arrested in September and to obtain release was forced to apologize for work that was clearly in the Cambodian and international public interest.

Nearly all independent media outlets in Cambodia have been closed or silenced amid the steady weaponization of laws and regulations aimed at curbing free speech.

Gerald Flynn, the British president of the  Overseas Press Club of Cambodia with a long history of environmental reporting, is the latest casualty. He was informed without evidence that his visa was fake, but maintains that his visa, work permit and press pass were all current and valid.  

At a time when fact-checking constraints on powerful and irresponsible social media platforms are being removed, Cambodia is in danger of falling into an information black hole in the absence of fair, independent and accurate reporting.

The FCCT’s professional membership urges the Cambodian authorities to reconsider their manifestly hostile stance to a free and accountable media, and to allow Mr Flynn to return and continue with the work in which he has invested so many years.


5 February 2025