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The Cambodian government has threatened legal action against the UK-based Vice media group after the culture publication ran an article containing manipulated portraits of the people killed at the hands of the Khmer Rouge at Phnom Penh’s Security Prison 21. The modified images, by the Irish photographic artist Matt Loughrey, were taken without permission from the archive of what is today the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and ran on Vice’s website on 9 April. As part of a wider project titled The Colourful Past, Loughrey restored and colourised the archival portraits of the prison’s victims in post-production. In some cases, he then edited the portraits to give the impression the inmates were smiling at the moment the photograph was taken. In one photo, Loughrey may have added a bloody handprint added to a wall behind the inmate, the Khmer Times newspaper reported.
Vice Media group is facing fierce backlash after publishing photographs of victims of Cambodia’s brutal Khmer Rouge regime that were altered to show some of the victims smiling.
12 Apr 2021 Vice Media on Sunday removed an article featuring digitally altered photos of Cambodian genocide victims with smiles on their faces after complaints from the Cambodian government and a petition to demand an apology from the media organization. The article, originally posted on Friday, showcased the work of Irish digital artist Matt Loughrey, who said he wanted to humanize victims of the genocidal Khmer Rouge, a Communist insurgency supported by China that tortured and killed up to 2 million people in the late 1970s. Loughrey took black-and-white photos of prisoners from the infamous S-21 torture and execution camp, a facility that once served as a high school called Tuol Sleng”, and used software to both colorize them and alter some of their expressions. He added a few other embellishments to some of the photos, such as a bloody handprint on the wall behind one prisoner.