The United States Is Missing in Action on Free Speech
Once a beacon of democratic ideals, America now struggles to live up to them. From Nepal to Indonesia, a new generation is looking elsewhere for inspiration.
Illustration: Ben Hickey for Bloomberg
As a reporter for the Cambodia Daily in 2004, one day was particularly memorable: Shortly after meeting with Angelina Jolie, the country’s leader issued a veiled death threat against everyone at our punchy little newspaper.
The Hollywood star, then a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency, had just had an audience with Prime Minister Hun Sen in Phnom Penh. As she strolled out of the meeting, I asked her about the plight of asylum seekers hiding in the jungles near Vietnam, an issue that had dominated our front pages for months. My colleagues and I had chronicled how the oppressed Montagnard minority was struggling to survive — eating tree leaves, sleeping in the mud and battling clouds of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.