Award-winning Cambodian journalist Mech Dara has been released on bail after he was detained on charges of inciting social unrest earlier this month, his lawyer said on Thursday.
He was arrested on 1 October after he shared posts on social media about a rock quarry.
Dara’s lawyer, Duch Piseth, confirmed he had been released and another journalist confirmed that Dara spoke briefly to reporters outside the Kandal provincial jail before leaving in a vehicle.
Earlier this month, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court said that the journalist, who worked for local and international media, had posted “provocative” and “false” messages and pictures about a rock quarry on a sacred mountain.
On Wednesday, the Cambodian information minister shared a video of Dara’s apology. He was seen wearing a prison garb.
“In all the messages that I posted, I conveyed false information that affected the leaders and the country’s reputation. I sincerely apologise for my mistakes and promise to stop sharing such harmful content,” Dara said in the video.
The video was accompanied by images of a handwritten three-page letter that the minister said was from the journalist.
Dara is known for exposing corruption and human trafficking in his work. He was in pre-trial detention since 1 October and faces up to two years in prison. His arrest sparked a wave of concern from rights groups and the US government.
He was travelling with his family from the coastal city of Sihanoukville to the capital Phnom Penh when authorities stopped his car and arrested him, the independent Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association (CamboJA) said in a statement after his arrest.
Dara was handed the Hero Award in 2023 by US secretary of state Antony Blinken for his investigations into massive scam compounds staffed mostly by trafficked workers in Cambodia.
The journalist managed to send an SMS to Cambodian human rights group Licadho saying he was being arrested by military police before his phone was seized, spokesperson Am Sam Ath said.
“We knew that he was arrested but we don’t know where he was taken or the reason for his arrest,” Am Sam Ath told AFP, adding that the military police had confirmed Dara’s arrest without revealing the charges.
Dara previously worked as a journalist for the Cambodia Daily and the Phnom Penh Post, two formerly thriving English language newspapers forced to shut down under government pressure, and the Voice of Democracy radio station and website, which was closed by the government last year.
“Every newsroom I work in gets silenced,” he told the BBC after then Cambodian leader Hun Sen ordered the closure of Voice of Democracy last year.
Dara is best known for his reports in the past few years about human trafficking connected to online scam operations.
The activity involves tricking people into signing up for what they believe are legitimate jobs in Cambodia, only for them then to be kept in virtual slavery in compounds often housing casinos as well, where they go online to target people around the world.
