Mech Dara, one of Cambodia’s most prominent journalists, known for exposing the country’s billion-dollar scam industry, has been released on bail after a video of him apologising to the country’s leaders appeared in pro-government media.On Wednesday a government-friendly site published a video of Dara, wearing a prison uniform, apologising and asking for forgiveness for various social media posts. He had been held in a cramped cell with more than a hundred inmates for more than three weeks.
He could still face up to two years in prison on the charges, which have been widely condemned by press freedom and human rights advocates. Dara said after his release that he would take a break from journalism while he fought the charges against him. “There’s absolutely no way that the international attention that is now on scam activity and the human trafficking related to it would be on the same level if it wasn’t for Dara,” said Nathan Paul Southern, an investigative journalist and operations director at the Eye Witness Project, who collaborated with Dara.
His reports documented the Telegram channels where trafficked workers are bought and sold, and the desperate pleas of those trapped inside compounds; he wrote about workers who jumped from balconies in attempts to escape, and the role and response of Cambodian officials., a ruling party senator, for his “role in serious human rights abuse related to the treatment of trafficked workers subjected to forced labour in online scam centres”. Dara had reported on the tycoon’s links to scam operations.