Is Cambodia’s latest defamation ruling suffocating online expression?

Throughout his career, British journalist Rupert Winchester has written for such varied publications as BBC, the South China Morning Post, and CNN Travel. His career has seen him travel throughout Asia, and he’s dabbled in both fiction and non-fiction; just years ago, he edited a book about the history of Kolkata that he crafted from the memoirs of his father, respected author Simon Winchester. Most recently, he’s served as Property Editor of the Phnom Penh Post, Cambodia’s oldest daily newspaper.

Winchester has been living in Cambodia since late 2011, when he arrived in the country to pen his latest novel. He’s blogged about his time in Phnom Penh since February 2012. His blog, The Mighty Penh, often contains more expansive and long-form versions of the articles he writes for the Post.

Blogging is a popular online sport in Cambodia – the country, which has fledgling Internet access, has developed something of a nascent blogging culture in recent years. Winchester’s blogging, however, has made him the unlikely target of a thorny defamation ruling in Cambodia. On July 24 of this year, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court forced Winchester to pay $25,000 in damages to Etienne Chevenier, a property developer for international architecture firm CityStar, and fined him an additional $2,000.

In June of last year, Winchester penned a post in which he alleged that Chenevier planned to destroy a colonial-era building and construct a lavish condominium in its place. The post, in which Winchester claimed that Phnom Penh's heritage was "under threat," went on to detail how Chenevier, a French national with Cambodian citizenship, nefariously sought to dismantle "one of Phnom Penh's most beautiful French colonial villas” built in the early 1900s. Winchester linked Chenevier’s plans to an alarming trend of colonial-era buildings being destroyed throughout Southeast Asia.

Within days of the article’s publication, Chenevier sued Winchester under Article 305 of Cambodia's Criminal Code. Defamation, under Article 305, is a serious offense that carries a fine ranging from $25 to $2,500. Three days after Chevenier filed the suit, Winchester, in a defensive act of self-censorship, removed the post from his blog. The story was also retracted from the Phnom Penh Post’s website, though it’s still accessible through web archives.

The Phnom Penh P