Wednesday, 30 January 2008

Former S-21 Photographer Plans Display

By Chiep Mony,
VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
29 January 2008

Audio in Khmer - Listen (MP3)

A former photographer for the Tuol Sleng prison plans to erect a giant display in the former Khmer Rouge district of Anlong Veng.

Nhem En will put up a six-meter long billboard Feb. 5 in Anlong Veng, where he is the deputy governor and where Pol Pot was cremated in 1998.

Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21, was the notorious Phnom Penh prison were as many as 16,000 Cambodians were tortured and later executed under the Khmer Rouge.

The chief of the prison was Kaing Khek Iev, alias Duch, who faces Khmer Rouge tribunal charges of crimes against humanity.

Nhem En will hang from the billboard some of the thousands of photographs of leaders he has in his collection.

He will not display photographs of killings, but he will also not seek to “glorify the Khmer Rouge,” he told VOA Khmer.

The display will cost him $3,500 of his own money, he said.

“We want to show, as history, that which people want to see,” said Yim Thin, deputy governor of Odar Meanchey province, where Anlong Veng is situated.

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