"Cambodian environmental journalist Ouk Mao arrested", 16 May 2025

Cambodian journalist Ouk Mao, whose reporting on illegal logging has seen him attacked both physically and legally, was arrested ...

Ek Cheat, Mao’s wife, spotted an unmarked white Lexus pull up outside their home in Stung Treng province sometime around midday. Three plainclothes officers entered Mao’s home, handcuffed him and told him that “their boss wanted to speak to Mao about a piece of land,” before taking him to an undisclosed location, Cheat said in a phone interview.

Colleagues of Mao, who work at a local online media outlet, have since identified the men as military police officers. According to his colleagues, Mao arrived at the Stung Treng Provincial Gendarmerie Headquarters around 1 p.m. May 16.

… Human rights monitoring NGO Adhoc also confirmed the arrest, noting that the men who detained Mao were not wearing uniforms.

Mao’s lawyer, Rin David, was able to confirm that Mao had been arrested but could not provide more details surrounding the circumstances of his arrest or what this means for the various charges Mao faces as a result of his environmental journalism.

… “Ouk Mao’s arbitrary arrest, carried out without a warrant, is an escalation of the severe judicial harassment the journalist has long endured,” Cédric Alviani, Reporters Without Borders’s Asia-Pacific bureau director, said in a statement that called for Mao’s immediate release.

… The physical attack on Mao and the authorities’ subsequent handling of the numerous charges against him have outraged Cambodian netizens who took to Facebook to question the authorities’ motives…

“I am sorry to hear this unexpected news [regarding the] arrest of Ouk Mao,” said Nop Vy, director of Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association (CamboJA), which monitors attacks on journalists and press freedoms in Cambodia…