Phnom Penh - Cambodian journalists on Wednesday accused the government of trying to censor the internet with new legislation they say aims at silencing public criticism.

Sam Rithy Doung Hak, a monitor for the Cambodian Association for the Protection of Journalists (CAPJ), said proposed laws to regulate audiovisual content on the internet could jeopardize Cambodia's relatively liberal media environment.

"These audiovisual laws will cover sound and pictures published on the internet, which I am convinced is driven by the government's intention to censor the internet," he said.

Information Ministry officials said earlier this week the laws, which are due to be passed later this year, were designed to prevent potentially defamatory or slanderous material from appearing on the internet.

But Sam Rithy Doung Hak said popular anti-government websites and political cartoons criticizing could be easily censored if the laws were introduced.

"We cannot say clearly how this is going to affect journalists' work since we have not seen the details of this law, but it is our intention to show the international community that it could be used as some sort of government tool to permanently scare online journalists so they don't go too far in criticizing the government," he said.

When asked to rate the current state of media freedom in Cambodia, he said, "our level of freedom is perhaps the best among the worst and the worst among the best."

Cambodia is currently ranked 128th on the US-based Freedom House organization's 2008 press freedom list - a "partially free" ranking shared with Georgia, Kenya and Paraguay. (dpa)