A Cambodian court denied a request for bail by freelance journalist Mech Dara, who his lawyer and others say is suffering from health issues and is in jail awaiting trial on “incitement” charges.
Dara, 36, was arrested on Sept. 30 and charged a day later with “incitement to provoke serious social disorder” over unspecified social media posts.
If found guilty, he faces six months to two years in prison.
“I do not know the reason behind the denial because I had asked for an explanatory warrant, but he did not give one to me, he just gave me a letter of notice,” defense lawyer Rim Bora said of the notice he received Oct. 18 from the Phnom Penh Municipal Court.
Dara had been suffering from physical and mental health problems that have worsened since being sent to pre-trial detention at Kandal provincial prison, said Am Sam Ath, director of operations at human rights group Licadho.
“If we speak of the conditions of the request for bail, it should be reasonable enough to allow him on bail, according to the criminal code,” he said.
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Dara was previously a reporter for The Cambodia Daily, Phnom Penh Post and Voice of Democracy. Last year, he received the State Department’s annual human trafficking “Hero” award for his reporting, which brought the issue to international attention.
His arrest has drawn condemnation from a range of foreign governments, press freedom organizations and human rights groups.
A prolific journalist, Dara is best known for his groundbreaking reporting on cyber-scam compounds in Cambodia, where criminal groups abduct, torture and enslave people into carrying out phone scams.
The State Department “has engaged with [the Cambodian government] at a number of different levels and made clear our concerns and called for his release,” spokesman Matthew Miller said at a daily State Department press briefing last week.
In a post to Facebook on Friday, the Australian Embassy in Cambodia said that Ambassador Derek Yip had raised concerns over Dara’s arrest at a meeting last week with Senior Minister and Human Rights Committee President Keo Remy.
Edited by Abby Seiff and Malcolm Foster.