Cambodian Government urges media to ‘stop mocking LGBT community’
The Cambodian government has urged the media to “stop mocking” the LGBT community.
The Ministry of Information sent a letter on Monday suggesting that entertainers and presenters had been making “jokes” about the LGBT community in order to gain popularity.
According to reports on the letter, it said making such “jokes” is unfair and discriminatory.
“This kind of commentary and/or performance is an act of looking down on LGBT people. It degrades the honor and rights of LGBT people who are also protected by the state’s law as well as other citizens,” the letter read.
In addition, the letter went on to say the country needs to be rid of anti-LGBT discrimination.
The letter comes after a local LGBT organisation, Rainbow Community Kampuchea, published a report saying that 70 percent of people admitted to making anti-LGBT comments.
Out of 1,563 people interviewed for the report across 11 provinces of Cambodia, 478 identified as LGBT, but that many had been open about their sexual orientation or gender identity and so had been victims of discrimination.
Sun Yun, from Rainbow Community Kampuchea, said she was happy to have heard about the support from the government.
“By working with the UN, I know that the rights of LGBT people are more and more respected in Cambodia. In my case, I could ask the local authority to get married to my partner without any problem,” she explained.
“They didn’t say anything; they don’t care much about same-sex marriage. However, I wish we had a law allowing same-sex marriage,” continued Yun.
