Watchdog Urges Cambodia To Drop Charges Against RT Collaborator Who Exposed Child Abuse

Cambodia should drop the fraudulent discrimination charges against a local man who helped the RT news channel film a documentary about child sexual exploitation in the country, a prominent international watchdog said Thursday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 30th May, 2019) Cambodia should drop the fraudulent discrimination charges against a local man who helped the RT news channel film a documentary about child sexual exploitation in the country, a prominent international watchdog said Thursday.

English-Khmer translator Rath Rott Mony faces up to a year in jail for "incitement to discriminate" after he was hired by RT to work on a documentary called "My Mother Sold Me" from 2017 to 2018.

"Mony is being punished solely for his role in exposing the horrors of child sexual exploitation in Cambodia," Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International regional director for East and Southeast Asia, said.

Bequelin argued that the "bogus charges" against the 47-year-old were designed to intimidate anyone who might want to help expose the sexual exploitation of minors and the government's inaction.

The Cambodian government has argued that the documentary, which aired last September, is inaccurate. Mony fled to Thailand for fear of prosecution but was arrested and deported back to Cambodia.