Cambodia steps up Internet surveillance

As Burma loosens its grip on the media, Cambodia has begun to rank
high among the countries repressing internet and telephone freedom in
the name of national security, safety and social order.

It is still not comparable to China or Vietnam, but Cambodia is moving
in the wrong direction.

Cambodia steps up Internet surveillance

Aug 30, 2012
By Clothilde Le Coz
http://asiancorrespondent.com/author/clothildelecoz/

Last February, the Kingdom of Wonders adopted an "inter-ministerial
circular", according to which every Internet cafe in the country has
to set up surveillance cameras and any phone shop has to register
callers using its services.

According to an unofficial translation obtained by the Asian
Correspondent, the circular is meant to "promote protection of
national security, safety and social order for the country".

Even though nothing has been implemented thus far, the circular is a
threat to every phone and Internet user in the country.

"This is not a law. The authorities simply decided to do whatever they
want to regulate online content in the country only because it could
violate khmer culture," stated Norbert Klein, the "founding father" of
the Internet in Cambodia and now the head of the Cambodia chapter of
the Internet Society.

To him, the circular is a "means of intimidation for Internet users
more than a means to protect their safety ".

In 1990, Norbert Klein connected Cambodia to the web at the back of
what is today an always-full restaurant in the heart of Phnom Penh,
where NGO workers and the expat population mix.

At that time, he wanted to help one of his colleague to complete an
online fellowship.

With a Colombian email program and a Singaporian modem it took them
weeks to get connected and finally read and receive emails.

Moreover, since the connection was asking for stable and steady
supply, the electricity was generated by a Vietnamese truck battery
stationed outside the house.

At that time, never Klein would never have imagined that the Internet
in Cambodia could deal with censorship.

After all, the only censor they faced in 1990 was the price: $5 per
minute of connection.

But then came human rights defenders like the Venerable Loun Sovath
using online tools to advocate for a cause, scandals arose when the
behaviors created by the Internet attempted to cult and religion and
the feared Jasmine Revolution started in neighbouring countries.

As of today, Cambodia has a bit more than 3% of its population online
with one of the quickest rates of growth in the region since it is
more than twice the number registered in 2011.

These are some of the reasons behind the Internet crackdown, which is
nothing but a simple agreement that the government can claim at any
moment and that consulted no elected member.

According to the inter-Ministerial circular signed by the Deputy Prime
Minister and the Minister of Post and Telecommunications, "past
experiences […] have shown that criminals and offenders always used
telecommunications services such as mobile phones, fixed phones, VoIP
and Internet as a means to commit terrorism, trans-boundary crimes,
robberies, kidnapping, murders, drug trafficking, human trafficking,
economic offenses, illegal installment of and illegal corporation of
all forms of telecommunications service, broadcasting of obscene
pictures and debauchery, which affect national customs, traditions and
social good moral values."

For these reasons, "all locations serving telephone and Internet
services shall be equipped with closed circuit television camera and
shall store footage data of users for at least 3 months.

Telephone service corporation owners along public roads shall [also]
record National Identity Cards of any subscriber".

As of today, there are more than 19 million sim card holders in Cambodia.

And it is still very difficult to get an ID card for Cambodian nationals.

For the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, which organizes "good
governance" forums in the country, the first obstacle to possess a
national id card is the price.

There is no fixed economic value to it and it can vary from $2.5 to $50.

According to the Ministry of Interior there are 9,27866 Cambodian
holding ID cards.

What does this circular mean for the almost ten million Cambodians
with sim cards but no ID ?

The will to control telecommunications is not new

This February circular is not the first attempt to control the use of
telecommunications.

However, it shows once again that the Ministry of Information is
excluded from the decision and seems to be less relevant when it comes
to regulation.

In 2010, the same Ministry of Post and Telecommunications attempted to
get the monopoly over the Internet cable industry in the country.

There are about 30 internet service providers in the country and 10
phone operators, which causes a loss of profit to the state-owned
services.

To solve this, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications attempted
to direct all international internet traffic through Telecom Cambodia,
which would have charged other operators a transmission fee.

However this time, because the ministry of information went publicly
against it, it had to be abandoned.

Moreover, it has only been five years since the use of the
peer-to-peer software Skype has been authorized.

Even if it was possible to connect to it, it was still illegal for the
Ministry of Post and Telecommunications was loosing money.

This sounds like a false argument since the people using Skype were
the ones who could not afford a phone call.

There was a Cambodian version of Skype but its lack of popularity
among the high ranking society and its difficulty to be used made the
government give it in.

For most of human rights defenders, Internet remains a free space
where sensitive topics can be discussed.

For Chak Sopheap, online activist and contributor to the network
Global Voices online, Internet is a "digital democracy", which should
be put in place in reality, outside of a computer screen.

Internet activists in Cambodia are being more effective to advocate
for themselves and denounce human rights violations.

For example, when Loun Sovath records them, he get a double answer;
the international community takes an interest while the Cambodian
authorities arrest him. "Internet users are the ones that the
government fears the most", continues Klein.

This is also confirmed by Ou Virak, from the Cambodia Center for Human
Rights (CCHR), according to whom "activists use more the Internet
during protests for example. They can advocate for themselves online,
especially through Facebook. Before the Internet became popular, media
were the target of the government. Today, activists are".

This circular is not only limited to online and mobile content and
usage but also to radio stations since "any radio communication wave
system corporation shall require permission from the Ministry of Post
and Telecommunications".

The radio's mission is mainly defined as a "public service".

Therefore, the decision maker should be an institution and not a
private corporation.

This could therefore apply to any independent media trying to set up
as a private company to own airtime and a frequency.

Upward trend in European suicides

"The recovery of the European economies is dependent on the mental
health of the population," Muijen said.

The upward trend in suicides began in 2008, when the euro zone entered
a recession.

In a study published last year in the journal Lancet, researchers
found that suicides rose from 2007 to 2009 in nine of the 10 countries
they studied.

The countries "facing the most severe financial reversals of fortune,"
they wrote, saw a greater rise in suicides.

The most dramatic change was in Greece, where the number of suicides
rose 19 percent.

The study, by David Stuckler at the University of Cambridge and
others, found that for every 1 percent increase in unemployment, there
is a an associated 0.8 percent increase in suicides in people under
65.

Although the rate of suicides remains lower than in other countries,
including the United States, the trend has alarmed mental health
providers because suicide was so rare in the past.

Greece, where the Orthodox church denies a funeral to people who take
their lives, had the lowest suicide rate of any Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development nation before the downturn surge
in unemployment.

Full article (long):
http://www.tampabay.com/news/world/suicide-rates-rise-in-europe-amid-job-losses-and-severe-cutbacks/1245869

The Greek Ministry of Health reported that suicides jumped 40 percent
in the first half of 2011 as compared with the same period in 2010.

In a single year, the rate increased from 2.8 suicides for every
100,000 people to at least five per 100,000.

The country's national depression and suicide hotline saw a 40 percent
increase in calls from 2010 to 2011 and reported that the majority of
people seeking help had problems including the loss of a job or an
inability to cover living costs.

And at the time the need for such a service is increasing, public
sector help has been reduced.

According to the Society of Social Psychiatry and Mental Health, the
cutbacks have had a severe impact on people's ability to get the help
they need:

There's a three-month wait for people seeking public mental health
services, social security has been reduced and community-based centers
for care have been shut down.

The suicide notes left in coat pockets or on desks in Greece are being
passed around on the Internet and studied like the final treatises of
revered scholars.

Friends and neighbors of Perris, who was 60 years old, say they have
read his note over and over to try to figure out whether they could
have done something differently. He blamed the "powerful of this
Earth" for his situation.

High school cheating and bribery

In a blatant defiance of examination rules, Cambodia's high school
students are looking up answers to test questions online through their
cell phones under the noses of proctors, some of whom have been
bribed.

"This year, cheating has increased," Cambodian Independent Teachers
Association president Rong Chhun told RFA as high school examinations
got under way in the country.

"Students are using smart phones to surf the Internet and Facebook for
answers," he said, adding that in some examination centers, school
proctors also ask students for bribes in the exams, which run from
Aug. 6-8.

The reports of bribery and cheating underscore Cambodia's reputation,
highlighted in a recent report by Berlin-based Transparency
International, for widespread corruption in the public sector.

Students have paid between 5,000 riel (U.S. $1.23) to 20,000 riel
(U.S.$4.91) for answers to exam questions, sources told RFA.

Cheating has been reported in the capital Phnom Penh and in Siem Reap,
Pursat, and Prey Veng, Rong Chhun said, while in Prey Veng, proctors
are allowing some students to take exams on behalf of others.

In Battambang province, it was calm outside the test centers on the
second day of exams. But inside, students were using smart phones to
look up answers to chemistry and history questions posted on Facebook.

Bribes required

Speaking to RFA, students said that proctors had asked students to
raise money for them in exchange for permission to cheat.

A father named Hang Sambo said that he had told his son not to bribe
proctors if asked for money.

One proctor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that he had been
asked by his own supervisor for a payment of at least 200,000 (U.S.
$49.10) as a share of what his superior assumed would be the bribes
paid to him.

"Only a few in the classroom know the subjects. They are relying on
answer sheets," he said.

In some cases, students are using answer sheets provided by their
teachers, he said, while in others teachers are entering the answers
onto test papers themselves.

In Phnom Penh, students admitted using smart phones to cheat on their
tests, while RFA reporters saw answer sheets sold openly on the
streets close to examination centers.

Cambodian Independent Teachers Association president Rong Chhun said
he has asked the country's Ministry of Education to take immediate
steps to end the cheating during exams.

Berlin-based corruption watchdog Transparency International ranked
Cambodia 164th worst out of 182 countries surveyed in its 2011
Corruption Perception Index.

Cambodia's official Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) launched an initiative
in May to eliminate bribes solicited by local commune councilors for
performing public services, with ACU deputy director Chhay Savuth
declaring the country's "culture of bribery has been in place for
over 20 years."

But international organizations have warned that Cambodia's
graft-busting bodies will be ineffective until they are free of
government influence and control.

Reported by Sophalmony Soun and Mom Sophon.
Translated by Samean Yun.
Written in English by Richard Finney.
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/cheating-08072012170011.html

Doctors discriminate against the poor

Cambodia is instructing doctors to practice without regards to
socioeconomic status, according to the country's top health official,
amidst reports that women had been left to die during childbirth and
other patients have been refused treatment because they did not have
the money to pay for services.

Minister of Health Mam Bunheng said Friday that improvements in
healthcare quality and service had over the past two years
substantially decreased the number of maternal and child fatalities
across Cambodia, which has the highest infant mortality rate in the
Southeast Asia.

He said that since 2010 the ministry had worked to teach doctors not
to differentiate between the rich and the poor—a practice which had
led to some doctors refusing to admit pregnant women and other
patients who could not cover certain medical fees.

"We are working on a process to improve maternal and child health,"
Mam Bunheng said, adding that the ministry is also in the process of
drafting a code of conduct for midwives.

"We are also working to improve our midwives in health centers and
referral hospitals," he said. "We are working to train midwives to
work in communities."

Mam Bunheng said that doctors had been instructed to admit poor
patients and that the Ministry of Health had allocated equity fund
reserves for providing treatment and food to the underprivileged.

He said that the government has helped about two million poor patients
nationwide through the equity fund foundation.

Expensive fees

But the health minister's statement runs contrary to reports that have
recently surfaced in Cambodia about discriminatory practices against
the poor in hospitals around the country, particularly in rural areas.

Nob Mean, a farmer from northwestern Cambodia's Banteay Meanchey
province, told RFA that he had been referred to a hospital that had
charged him a number of fees for medical services.

"The referral hospital has asked me for money to pay for my bed. It's
expensive," he said.

"The hospital charged me 81,500 riels [U.S. $20]. It's a lot of money
for the poor," he said, adding that he considers service in the
country's health industry to be about 60 percent positive, but that he
would like the government to bring the standard closer to 100 percent.

Lor Vannthary, a physician who works for a domestic health
nongovernmental organization, said that while the government has paid
more attention to health issues in recent years, a number of problems
remain in the industry.

"Referral hospitals have been built, but they lack a sufficient number
of doctors. Young graduating doctors are refusing to work in remote
areas of the country and instead prefer the city," he said.

"Also, some doctors don't pay close enough attention to patients
staying in state hospitals because they have their own private
hospitals—the doctors are not being paid enough to work."

Heng Tai Kry, a secretary of state with the Ministry of Health,
acknowledged that some doctors are unable to pay enough attention to
their patients, adding that it was largely due to working long hours
with many different patients.

He denied the claim that negligence on the part of doctors was a
result of low pay.

"Doctors are paid enough to live, but sometimes the demand is too
great and we can't please everybody," he said.

"The same problem exists even in places like the U.S. and Singapore."

'Desperately poor'

Cambodia's Ministry of Health oversees more than 1,000 hospitals and
5,000 doctors across the country.

According to the London-based nongovernmental organization Health
Poverty Action (HPA), some 78 percent of Cambodians live in "deep
poverty" with four of out five living on less than U.S. $2 a day. The
group calls healthcare provision in the country "desperately poor."

Some 58 percent of people in mountainous areas were living below the
poverty line in 2004, it says, up from 40 percent ten years earlier.

"While poverty has decreased overall in recent years, the health of
indigenous people living in mountain areas has declined dramatically,
along with the quality of health services available to them," the
group said.

HPA says that with 98 deaths per 1,000 live births, Cambodia has the
highest infant mortality rate in Southeast Asia.

Health Officials Demand Equal Care
Cambodia's health ministry says doctors cannot leave the poor untreated.
2012-08-06

Reported by Tin Zakariya and Sok Serey.
Translated by Samean Yun.
Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/healthcare-08062012174311.html