Freelance journalist Mech Dara was arrested while traveling from Preah Sihanouk to Phnom Penh on September 30, 2024, his relative said.
Dara was arrested on the expressway in Srae Ambel district in Koh Kong province at 3.57 p.m while he was with his family on their way back to Phnom Penh.
According to local rights group Licadho, Dara reached out to them with a message saying, “I was arrested and send to military province police (sic)”, before his phone was taken away.
According to his relatives who were at the scene, the arrest was made by the military police at the Srae Ambel toll booth as their vehicle stood in line to pay the toll to enter the expressway.
A relative said there were six cars at the toll - one official car and five civilian cars. The relative said the authorities told them that Dara was arrested based on an arrest warrant although they were not shown the document.
“Already got him,” one of the officers allegedly said during his arrest. They seized Dara’s phone and also asked his relatives to sit in the car and remain silent, the relative recounted the incident.
Dara‘s current location remains unknown as CamboJA contacted numerous departments, from the police to military police and M1 prison department.
Eng Hy, military police spokesman, confirmed that the arrest was made according to the warrant but did not reveal the reason or where the journalist had been sent.
On September 29, Dara posted two images on his Facebook page, one showing a quarry operation and another the Ba Phnom stairway in Prey Veng.
A day later, the Prey Veng provincial administration issued a statement rejecting his post, and accused him of “wanting to cause social disorder or confusion”. The administration also called on the Ministry of Information to take legal action against Dara.
Who is Mech Dara?
Mech Dara is a Cambodian journalist whose reports on human trafficking, connected to online scam operations, were some of the country’s prominent investigative pieces that shone light on the criminal activity.
He previously worked as a journalist for Cambodia Daily, Phnom Penh Post and the Voice of Democracy (VOD), which was closed by the government last year.
Over the years, Dara has covered numerous controversial issues. In 2022, he was detained by the immigration police for about two hours while covering the rescue of Vietnamese nationals from an alleged scam compound in Sihanoukville.