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Expelled
March 9
Ly Chandara, Tu Do, EXPELLED
Chandara, the editor of Tu Do (Freedom), an anti-Communist Vietnamese-language newspaper published in Phnom Penh, was expelled by Cambodian authorities to Vietnam. He was among several dozen ethnic Vietnamese opponents of Hanoi-very loosely affiliated with one another, and collectively termed the "Tu Do Movement"-whom the Cambodian government expelled or threatened with expulsion between December 1995 and December 1996. Chandara was taken into custody at the Vietnamese border and incarcerated in Vietnam for seven months. He was released on Oct. 10 and immediately repatriated to Cambodia, after promising Vietnamese officials that he would not conspire against Vietnam or engage in any other political activity. However, Chandara said in late January 1997 that he was seeking permission from the Cambodian government to relaunch Tu Do. Human rights activists in Phnom Penh had questioned Cambodia's authority to expel Chandara, citing as evidence of his Cambodian citizenship a voter registration card in his name for Cambodia's U.N.-supervised elections in 1993.
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