- Journalist Gerald Flynn was barred from Cambodia on January 5th, 2025, despite having a valid visa and work permit. Immigration officials claimed he submitted a fraudulent visa application and placed him on a blacklist, citing an alleged error in a document submitted in February 2024.
- Flynn’s deportation appears to be retaliation for his journalistic work, particularly his reporting on environmental issues and his involvement in a France24 documentary critical of Cambodia’s carbon offsetting efforts. This documentary aired on November 22nd, 2024, and the Cambodian government issued a statement condemning it.
- Flynn’s case is part of a broader pattern of repression against journalists and environmental activists in Cambodia. The text highlights the increasing hostility towards independent media and the shrinking space for civil society under the current government.
- This incident underscores the importance of press freedom and the challenges faced by journalists working in repressive environments. Flynn’s reporting on environmental issues, including illegal logging and land grabbing, has exposed corruption and human rights abuses, and his deportation sends a chilling message to other journalists working in Cambodia.
BANGKOK, Thailand — On Jan. 5, Mongabay journalist Gerald Flynn was denied entry to Cambodia.
Flynn has lived and reported in the country since 2019, but upon his return from a brief visit to neighboring Thailand, Cambodian immigration officials accused him of having acquired a fake visa and told him that he was “permanently banned” from returning.
With little explanation, Flynn was then forced onto a flight to Bangkok.
Flynn held a valid work permit and a 12-month extension to his multiple-entry business visa issued on February 6, 2024, and he had worked and traveled on these documents multiple times over the course of 2024 without issue.
Days prior to being denied entry, Flynn was flagged by immigration while flying out of Siem Reap but was ultimately allowed to board his flight to Thailand and was not informed that he would not be allowed to return.
Flynn has maintained a valid press pass for the entirety of his time in Cambodia, with his 2025 press pass application submitted on Dec. 27, shortly after applications opened. The General Department of Immigration accused Flynn of incorrectly submitting a document in February 2024, a process that was handled by a reputable visa agent.
According to immigration officials, he applied for a visa to work as an electrician, despite having worked as a journalist for more than five years in Cambodia and having represented himself publicly and to the government as such. Flynn’s visa agent has also rejected this claim.
The British Embassy in Phnom Penh has so far received no information regarding official appeals procedures that might be open to Flynn.
Neither the officials from the immigration department nor the Ministry of Information have responded to inquiries regarding Flynn’s case.
Flynn, who was elected president of the Overseas Press Club of Cambodia in both 2023 and 2024, has reported for a range of local media in Cambodia, as well as for several international outlets, with a focus on environmental crimes and human rights abuses. From 2022 to 2023, he spent a year investigating illegal logging in the Cardamom Mountains as a fellow at the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN). His work as a RIN fellow uncovered a logging operation operating out of a Cambodian prison, exposed a senior government official as an illicit timber trafficker, and highlighted the reporting from across Cambodia to document logging, mining and land grabbing operations that have resulted in widespread ecological damage. Many of these destructive and often illegal activities could not have happened without at least tacit approval from key government figures, and Flynn’s reporting has repeatedly unmasked the political and business elite profiting from the plundering of Cambodia’s natural resources.
Flynn and other journalists who worked with him for Mongabay have routinely faced threats and harassment from Cambodian authorities. A team of Mongabay reporters, including Flynn, was briefly detained by government rangers in Chhaeb-Preah Roka Wildlife Sanctuary in northern Cambodian where the team had traveled with environmental activists to document illegal logging. The journalists were released the same day following sustained pressure from diplomats and local rights groups.
But Flynn’s most recent brush with the Cambodian authorities has so far not been resolved. While immigration officials told Flynn on Jan. 5 that he was not allowed back into Cambodia due to visa issues, they also informed him that he had been placed on the blacklist on Nov. 25, showing him a screenshot of the immigration department’s computer system to that effect.
This was shortly after Flynn was featured as a key source in a documentary produced by publicly-funded French broadcaster France24, which aired on Nov. 22 and questioned the efficacy of Cambodia’s flagship carbon offsetting project, the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project. Both the Ministry of Environment and project proponent Wildlife Alliance were quick to issue statements dismissing the France24 documentary as “fake news” and accused the French broadcaster without evidence of “using old images” to mislead the public. Neither statement detailed specific factual errors or inaccuracies.
Subsequently, on Nov. 23, six environmental activists were detained in the northeastern province of Stung Treng while investigating an illegal logging operation that Flynn had reported on for Mongabay previously. Two of the activists had also featured in the France24 documentary. All six were released without charge on Nov. 25, albeit on the condition that they never work with foreign journalists again. Two of these six activists, along with another environmentalist who had worked with the group, joined the ruling Cambodian People’s Party on Jan. 15 and denounced their former activist colleagues.
All of this is taking place against a backdrop of increasing repression in Cambodia, where civic space and press freedoms have withered under four decades of dynastic Hun family rule.
Chhoeung Chheng, a Cambodian journalist covering environmental and land rights issues, was shot and killed in Siem Reap province in December 2024. This was shortly after journalist Ouk Mao was charged with illegally deforesting a protected area in September 2024. Mao had helped expose logging linked to a mining company that has ties to Cambodian military officials and now stands accused of the very thing he sought to prevent. Similarly, prominent investigative journalist Mech Dara was jailed in September 2024 on charges widely believed to be political in nature. He has since been released on bail, but is restricted from continuing his journalistic work.
Rights groups documenting the harassment of journalists in the country reported a spike in cases of threats, intimidation, legal harassment and physical violence over the course of 2024.
For media inquiries, please contact press(at)mongabay.com
Coverage of Flynn’s situation:
Credits
