Cambodian journalist investigating illegal logging shot dead

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Cambodian journalist investigating illegal logging shot dead
by AFP Staff Writers
Phnom Penh (AFP) Dec 7, 2024

A Cambodian journalist died on Saturday after he was shot this week while investigating illegal logging in the country's northwest, police said.

Chhoeung Chheung, 63, who worked for local news outlet Kampuchea Aphivath, was shot in the abdomen with a homemade weapon on Wednesday evening in a forest in Siem Reap province, provincial police chief Huoth Sothy told AFP.

"He went to investigate problems at a community forest when he was shot," Huoth Sothy said, adding that the journalist died at a hospital in the early hours of Saturday.

The police chief said a suspect had been arrested and confessed to shooting the journalist over "a personal dispute".

Run Sareth, editor of Kampuchea Aphiwat, could not be immediately reached by AFP.

But he told local news outlet Kiripost that Chhoeung Chheung had faced "many threats" from illegal loggers due to his reporting.

"It is a regretful incident that happened to a journalist, especially when he went to see logging in a community forest," Nop Vy, executive director of the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association (CamboJA), told AFP.

Since 1994, at least 15 journalists have been killed in the Southeast Asian country, according to the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.

In 2014, Taing Try was shot dead while investigating the illicit timber trade in northeastern Kratie province.

Three suspects -- a former soldier, a policeman and a military police officer -- were arrested for killing the journalist.

The tussle over protecting or exploiting natural resources has long been a contentious issue in Cambodia, with environmentalists threatened, arrested and killed in the past decade.

A court in July this year sentenced 10 local environmentalists to between six and eight years in jail over their activism.

Last month, Ouch Leng, a prominent Cambodian environmentalist who was awarded a 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize, was detained for a day alongside five other activists while investigating illegal logging in a national park in northeastern Stung Treng province.

Unchecked illicit logging has contributed to a sharp drop in Cambodia's forest cover over the years, according to activists.

From 2002 to 2023, a third of Cambodia's humid primary forests -- some of the world's most biodiverse and a key carbon sink -- were lost, according to monitoring site Global Forest Watch.