Curtailing Free Expression, Opinion and Information Online in Southeast Asia were fired.430 This crackdown has continued after the election.431 Case of shutdown of news websites prior to elections In July 2018, the prakas appeared to have enabled the blocking of websites of key independent news outlets – including Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and Voice of Democracy – and websites of English newspapers two days prior to the general elections.432 The Director-General of Information and Broadcasting at the Ministry of Information noted that 17 websites had been targeted by his ministry, which in concert with the Ministries of Interior and Post and Telecommunications, sought to block the sites for 48 hours, on the basis that “contents of those new media (we)re provocative, very political in their tendencies, and … restricting to the election”. Other sites supportive of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) government reportedly remained accessible.433 CPP won the elections with approximately 80 percent of the vote.434 430 Niem Chheng, Ananth Baliga, ‘Radio station booted off air’, Phnom Penh Post, 24 August 2017, Available at: https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/radio-station-booted-air; Mech Dara, Ananth Baliga, ‘Government closes 15 radio stations’, Phnom Penh Post, 25 August 2017, Available at: https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/government-closes-15-radio-stations; Nareth Muong, Joshua Lipes, ‘Cambodia to Monitor, ‘Control’ Online News Ahead of Upcoming Ballot’, Radio Free Asia, 4 June 2018, Available at: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/ news-06042018162755.html; The Cambodia Daily, ‘The Cambodia Daily to Close After 24 Years’, Available at: https://www.cambodiadaily.com/cambodia-daily-close-24-years/; BBC, ‘Phnom Penh Post: Firing and resignations after sale of Cambodian daily’, 7 May 2018, Available at: https:// www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44027032 431 Notably, in July 2019, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court began the trial of two former Radio Free Asia journalists Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin for charges of espionage under section 445 of Cambodia’s Criminal Code, for alleged “illegal collection of information for a foreign source”, and further charges of alleged production of pornography. In May 2019, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that the charges against both journalists had not been adequately substantiated and that the gravity of violation of their fair trial rights amounted to arbitrary deprivation of liberty. See UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, ‘Opinion No. 3/2019 concerning Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin (Cambodia)’ adopted by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention at its eighty-fourth session, 24 April–3 May 2019, see paras 43, 51, 52, 59, 64, Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Detention/Opinions/Session84/A_ HRC_WGAD_2019_3.pdf; See also ICJ, ‘Submission of the International Commission of Jurists to the Universal Periodic Review of Cambodia’, 12 July 2018, para 26, Available at: https://www.icj. org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Cambodia-UPR-Advocacy-Non-legal-submission-July-2018-ENG. pdf; Human Rights Watch, ‘Cambodia: Drop Case Against Journalists’, 24 July 2019, Available at: https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/07/24/cambodia-drop-case-against-journalists 432 Prak Chan Thul, Amy Savitta Lefevre, ‘Cambodia blocks some independent news media sites: rights group’, Reuters, 28 July 2018, Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cambodiaelection-censorship/cambodia-blocks-some-independent-news-media-sites-rights-groupidUSKBN1KH29Q 433 Erin Handley, ‘Cambodia blocks 17 media websites before vote’, Al Jazeera, 28 July 2018, Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/cambodia-blocks-17-media-websitesvote-180728103300267.html 434 Hannah Ellis-Petersen, ‘Cambodia: Hun Sen re-elected in landslide victory after brutal crackdown’, The Guardian, 29 July 2018, Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/29/ cambodia-hun-sen-re-elected-in-landslide-victory-after-brutal-crackdown 115