The arrested Thai citizen sitting in front of the toilet adorned concrete depiction of Angkor Wat as a stepping stone (All photos: DAP-news)
The arrested man with the picture of Angkor Wat removed from the front of his toiletBy Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
10 August 2009
A Thai citizen was arrested in Poipet Monday for allegedly insulting Angkor Wat.
Banteay Meanchey provincial police arrested the man after he carved the shape of Angkor Wat in the concrete in front of a public toilet in the border town.
His act constituted “looking down” on Angkor Wat and was “against the will of Cambodian people,” a police official said, a penal crime under Cambodian law.
The suspect has not yet been sent to the court.
In 2003, rumors of Thai insults of Angkor Wat were enough to spark a night of riots and looting that destroyed the Thai Embassy and numerous Thai businesses in the capital.
Deum Ampil newspaper reported that the arrested Thai man is 39 year-old Sorlawun Khamsorn from Nongkhai of Saraburi province. According to the locals, he is an illegal immigrant who came to live in Cambodia since more than 10 years ago, married a Khmer woman and has 3 children with her. Later he divorced the Khmer woman and married a Vietnamese woman and has two children with her. Currently he is also divorced from the Vietnamese woman.
According to the locals, after carving the picture of Angkor Wat temple on the concrete floor in front of the toilet door, the man made innuendos and insulting comments to the Cambodian people that prompted them to report his actions to the police.
The arrest also comes as Cambodia and Thailand are seeking to resolve a longrunning military standoff along the northern border.
7 comments:
This idiot Thai should be locked up for a long time. If Khmer did this in Thailand, we can expect to get a brutal treatment from the Thai police.
i have an idea, why don't we make a sculpture in an image of thai king from bull shit.
I agree. I predict that the Thais will be very, very pissed off.
Don't the police have better things to focus on than this? Honestly, why don't we just let him express himself?
As a for it being, "against the will of the Cambodian people" - when did that start being a crime?
7:02PM...huh???????????? it became a crime if i go to the thai king and call him a motherfucker. don't mind me, i'm just expressing myself. it's not against the will of the thai people, is it? i probably get away if i call a former u.s president Bush a motherfucker. anyhow,i'm just expressing myself, right?
The police had better things to do, that was arresting the Thai for insulting Cambodia's pride and joys. The police were just expressing themselves and acting on behalf of the Cambodian people. It's against the will of the Thai people for Cambodian police to arrest that dumbass Thai for expressing himself.
Maybe I need to express myself by walking into the middle of Bangkok with my bullhorn calling all the Thai kings, a bunch of fucking bastards. I probably wouldn't get arrested, murdered perhaps. That dumbass Thai was that lucky he didn't the get the S-21 Khmer Rouge style treatment for insulting Cambodia pride and joys.
11:22AM - Yes, lets just let the police express themselves and make up the rules as they go along - that sounds like a good idea doesn't it?!
The fact it that there is no law that states what that man did is wrong - his expression is protected under the Cambodian constitution. If you are unhappy with that the ask your buddy Hun Sen to change the law - but don't let the police make up shit saying that it is 'against the will of the Cambodian people.'
Perhaps you could ask Samdech to put a clause in the constitution saying that no one can say anything bad about Angkor Wat.....but do we really want to live in a society that is so sensitive about these things?
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