Phnom Penh (DPA)- A dentist and a guesthouse owner were among four people arrested by Cambodian police for allegedly distributing pamphlets predicting world upheaval, national media reported Monday.
The Cambodia Daily newspaper said they were taken into custody Thursday for handing out a leaflet that used Buddhist prophecies to forecast a world war, volcanoes erupting and earthquakes between 2012 and 2014.
The police chief of Svay Rieng province in southeastern Cambodia said the four had recommended concerned citizens should perform good deeds to ensure they survived the impending apocalypse.
'The leaflet might intimidate people,' said Prach Rim. 'But I think the court will release them because the case is not a big crime.'
A prominent political observer, Chea Vannath, said the four should be freed since freedom of expression was protected under the constitution.
And since the leaflet concerned possible future events, it could not yet be proven to be true or false.
'The (arrests were) probably due to fear of social disorder, especially after what happened on Diamond Island,' Chea Vannath said, in reference to the bridge crush that killed 353 people a fortnight ago in the capital.
'The authorities feel nervous of any other speculations because the accident is too recent,' she said.
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