Creator
Youk Chhang
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Youk Chhang is a Cambodian survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime who has led the Documentation Center of Cambodia since 1995.
Youk Chhang is the executive director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), which documents the Khmer Rouge regime.[1] He has led the center since 1995 and has worked on the memory of the Khmer Rouge years and on justice for them.[1][2]
Early life
Chhang was born in 1961 and grew up in Phnom Penh.[1][3] DC-Cam's biography of him says that under Khmer Rouge rule, at the age of 15, he was arrested for gathering mushrooms in the rice fields. It says he was tortured in public in front of more than a hundred villagers and then sent to an adult prison without a trial.[1] In a 2018 interview with TIME, he said that the torture left scars on his legs.[2]
The biography says he later escaped and went to the United States as a refugee.[1] There he continued his studies, including politics at the University of Dallas.[3]
Return to Cambodia
In the 1990s Chhang returned to Cambodia. He ran training on democracy and human rights for the International Republican Institute, an organization based in the United States. He also helped with the elections run by the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia.[1]
Documentation Center of Cambodia
Chhang became the leader of DC-Cam in 1995. The center was founded that year as a field office of the Cambodian Genocide Program at Yale University, to research and document the Khmer Rouge regime and to train others in that work. He kept running it after it became an independent Cambodian non-governmental organization in 1997.[1][3]
He testified as a witness before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the court backed by the United Nations for Khmer Rouge crimes.[1][2] DC-Cam collected evidence for the court.[3] His DC-Cam biography credits him with a nationwide genocide education program, programs on oral history and reconciliation, and the founding of the Anlong Veng Peace Center.[1]
Chhang has worked toward a permanent home for DC-Cam, the Sleuk Rith Institute, planned as a center for genocide studies in Asia.[2][1] TIME wrote that the building, designed by Zaha Hadid, remained on paper.[2] He heads the institute in Phnom Penh and the Queen Mother Library there.[3][1]
Books and films
Chhang co-edited the book Cambodia's Hidden Scars: Trauma Psychology in the Wake of the Khmer Rouge (2011). He was executive producer of the documentary A River Changes Course (2012), which won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013. He also produced Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll (2014).[1]
Honors and roles
TIME named him one of its "60 Asian heroes" in 2006 and one of the "Time 100" in 2007.[1][3] In 2003 he was one of the founders of the Institute for International Criminal Investigations in The Hague. He holds a senior research fellowship at the Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution, and Human Rights of Rutgers University-Newark.[1]
In 2017 he and DC-Cam received the Judith Lee Stronach Human Rights Award of the Center for Justice and Accountability. That year King Norodom Sihamoni made him a Commander of the Royal Order of Cambodia.[1] On August 31, 2018, in Manila, he received the Ramon Magsaysay Award, often called Asia's Nobel Prize.[2][1]
A royal decree dated January 19, 2026, named him Ambassador to the Cabinet of King Norodom Sihamoni.[3] DC-Cam gives the post a rank equal to that of a minister,[1] while Cambodge Mag wrote that it carries the protocol rank of Minister of State.[3]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 Documentation Center of Cambodia, John D. Ciorciari, A Brief Biography: Youk Chhang (updated February 22, 2026), PDF page 1
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 TIME, Eli Meixler, Cambodia's Youk Chhang: Why We Must Fight for Justice After Genocide (September 5, 2018)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Cambodge Mag, Youk Chhang Appointed Ambassador to the Royal Cabinet of His Majesty the King of Cambodia (January 25, 2026)