Filed under: Education
Community Malaria Workers Use SMS to Report in Real-Time
- Malaria Consortium’s Ngor Pengby demonstrating how to charge a mobile phone using a solar panel. This project is in collaboration with Mobitel. Photo by WHO/Moeun Chhean Nariddh
From her house in Snay Anchit Village, about five kilometers from the health center in Kampot provonce’s Chum Kiri district, 20-year-old village malaria worker Kong Lida can clearly hear the noise of a generator roaring in the distance. This generator is an important source of power where Lida and other villagers have their car batteries charged everyday so that their houses can be lit up at night from electric lamps and at the same time charge up their mobile phones.
But soon Lida and other village malaria workers in her village and other communes will not need to pay the generator owner to have their car batteries charged anymore. Now, all these VMWs will get their power from a ubiquitous source of energy – namely solar power.
As part of the country’s malaria elimination strategy, the National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control or CNM, with technical support from Malaria Consortium (MC) and WHO, has launched a pilot program to train VMWs in Kampot, Siem Reap and Kampong Cham provinces on how to send simple mobile phone text messages (SMS) to report in real time on detected malaria cases. These SMS messages also support the paper reporting that feeds into the health information system from the health centers. (more…)
Filed under: Free Speech
All Parties Stand to Gain From Freedom of Information Law
Letter to The Cambodia Daily, Thursday, September 29, 2011
I read with great interest the move to legalize freedom of information in Cambodia in the article “Group Backs Freedom of Information Draft Law,” Sept 27, Page 1.
Regardless of which parties or politicians sponsor the Freedom of Information Law (FoI), the passing of the access to information legislation will be of a great benefit for all sectors of the society, including the government itself.
With a FoI law in place, the government can promote transparency, good governance and social accountability, which are deemed the best weapons to fight corruption in Cambodia.
Most importantly, the public will reap a significant profit from full information disclosure that can help them better engage in Cambodia’s democratic process and to make more informed decision about their daily life. (more…)
Filed under: Free Speech
Freedom of expression groups urge ASEAN to promote access to information
SOURCE: Southeast Asian Press Alliance, 28 September 2011
(SEAPA/IFEX) – Jakarta, 28 September 2011 – On International Right to Know Day, ARTICLE 19, Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), Media Defence-Southeast Asia and SAPA Task Force on ASEAN Freedom of Information, urge the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to demonstrate its commitment to public participation by promoting access to information within ASEAN and among its member states.
Across the world, the right to information has been widely recognised by regional bodies and more than 90 countries alike as a fundamental right essential for the achievement of every person’s civil, political and socio-economic rights and as a mechanism to promote democratic accountability and good governance. These include the ASEAN member states of Indonesia, Thailand, and the federal state of Selangor in Malaysia.
ASEAN has been gradually moving towards greater incorporation of public participation. At the 18th ASEAN Summit in May this year, the Chair’s statement emphasised that ASEAN member states will continue to “encourage the participation of the peoples and other stakeholders of ASEAN” and intensify its work towards a “people-oriented, people-centred and rules-based ASEAN”. (more…)
Filed under: Free Speech
Journalists Fear Media Environment of Self-Censorship
by Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer | Washington, DC, Friday, 09 September 2011
Moeun Chhean Nariddh, director of the Cambodia Institute for Media Studies, on “Hello VOA” Thursday. Photo: by Heng Reaksmey
Journalists in Cambodia are currently facing problems of self-censorship, lawsuits and a competitive market, media experts said Thursday, but they said news organizations must continue to hold to principles of professional and a duty to the public.
The trend in oppression of Cambodian journalists have shifted from street attacks, threats of violence and murder to one of punitive legal measures by powerful interests, Moeun Chhean Nariddh, director of the Cambodia Institute for Media Studies, told “Hello VOA.”
In recent years, journalists have had to face a number of lawsuits or jail terms, especially under a criminalized defamation law.
This has created an environment where journalists self censor by avoiding issues like corruption and human rights abuses, he said. The best counter measure, he said, is accurate reporting in the public’s interest. (more…)
Filed under: Commentary
The loss of a living Almanac on Tuol Sleng
Moeun Chhean Nariddh, The Phnom Penh Post, Wednesday, 07 September 2011
It was 1998 when former Phnom Penh Post Editor Sara Colm came to me with an assignment. This was not a regular journalistic assignment to report on a story. However, she gave me a new job to translate a compelling memoir of Mr Vann Nath, a surviving prisoner at Khmer Rouge’s Tuol Sleng execution and torture center.
My evening became occupied. With two Khmer and English dictionaries on my sides, I started pecking loudly at a typewriter, breaking the silence of many nights to come.
At times, my translation work seemed to have had a short supply since Mr Vann Nath could produce only a page in a day or two. The painter-turned writer said he felt too overwhelmed by the painful memory about his torture and other prisoners’ tragedy to write as much as he could. (more…)
Filed under: Commentary
Vann Nath: A witness to history
Youk Chhang, The Phnom Penh Post, Wednesday, 07 September 2011
Two days ago, on September 5, 2011, Vann Nath passed away. As one of only 14 known survivors of the infamous Tuol Sleng S-21 prison, Vann Nath was a witness to history and exhibited great strength in providing his testimony despite the horrific crimes he suffered and in the face of the impunity enjoyed by his former tormentors for over 30 years.
When the Khmer Rouge tribunal was finally established to seek justice for victims of the Khmer Rouge, Vann Nath chose not to apply for civil party status. He made this choice because he understood that his primary duty was to provide testimony for subsequent generations of Cambodians to learn from. This reflected a concept of justice that focuses on the future of humanity, rather than temporary individual desires for retribution, revenge or remuneration. (more…)
Filed under: Uncategorized
Vann Nath, Artist and Cambodia Torture Survivor, Dies at 65
By SETH MYDANS, The International Herald Tribune, Published: September 5, 2011
Vann Nath, an artist who was one of only a handful of survivors of the Khmer Rouge torture center Tuol Sleng, and who lived to testify two years ago at the trial of his jailer, died Monday in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He was 65.
The cause was cardiac arrest, his family said, adding that he had been in a coma for three days. He had suffered from kidney disease and other ailments for years.
Shackled and tortured along with other prisoners when he was arrested at the end of 1977, Mr. Vann Nath was spared by his jailers to paint portraits of the Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot. His more recent paintings of scenes of torture now hang on the walls of Tuol Sleng, now a museum. (more…)
