Stephanie Scawen

Stephanie Scawen's picture
Stephanie Scawen
Senior Producer | Malaysia
Biography

Stephanie Scawen, a senior producer based out of Kuala Lumpur, has spent more than a decade reporting in Asia, covering stories from all parts of the region.

Her work with Al Jazeera has taken her from Sri Lanka to Cambodia, and on to Thailand, China, Singapore and Vietnam. Prior to joining AJE, Stephanie worked as a producer for for Star TV, CNBC Asia and Associated Press Television.

Latest posts by Stephanie Scawen

By Stephanie Scawen in Asia on February 9th, 2012



Want to see vultures in the wild? You'd better be prepared to get up early. Like 4:30am early!

And if you want to get in real close, you'd also better be prepared to stand silently in a thatch-covered pit for four or five hours to get that 'special photo'.

At least that's what my cameraman Mark Giddens had to do to shoot the video for our story on Cambodia's last surviving vulture population.

Vultures can be spooked easily, hence the need for silence. But once they have decided to eat, there's no holding them back.

Tags: Cambodia
By Stephanie Scawen in Asia on November 10th, 2011
Environmental activists call on the government of Cambodia to conserve Prey Lang forest [EPA]

"Tell me how can we fix Khmer culture," my driver asked me, as we sat outside the CRCK rubber concession in Prey Lang forest. 

"Education, education, education," I replied. "So that people know corruption is wrong and can be stopped."  

"Yes, but our leaders, they are rich and they were educated overseas. They have education, but it seems to make no difference," he retorted.

By Stephanie Scawen in Asia on September 6th, 2011
Photo by EPA

Three decades have passed since Vann Nath was freed from the horrors of the Cambodian torture centre S-21.

He spent those 30 years waiting patiently to see the perpetrators of the crimes inflicted upon him, and thousands of others, brought to justice.

Nath was arrested by the Khmer Rouge and was eventually brought to the capital, Phnom Penh, and taken to S-21 - the high school turned torture centre better known today as the Tuol Sleng genocide museum.

He was trained as a painter in the northwestern city of Battambang, and his ability to paint saved him from almost certain death. 

The artist  was given a photograph of Pol Pot and was told to paint Brother Number One’s portrait and that portrait only.

After the fall of the regime he turned to painting full time, using art to continue to show the world what life was like under the Khmer Rouge.

"People come to ask me about my life and the lives of Cambodian people at that tim

Tags: Vann Nath
By Stephanie Scawen in Asia on July 26th, 2010
Photo by AFP

Guilty of crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Convention – war crimes to you and me.

He wasn’t under duress or merely following orders. Kaing Guek Eav – or Duch – was "deeply enmeshed" in the criminal system that was S21.

And so the head of the Khmer Rouge’s most notorious detention and torture centre in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 was found guilty and sentenced to 35 years in prison. 

Five years less than prosecutors had asked for, mind you, as the ECCC judges took time off for mitigating circumstances – his apparent remorse, his co-operation with the court, and his potential for rehabilitation.

But then there was a further reduction on account of the time he’d spent in illegal military detention.

By Stephanie Scawen in Asia on July 25th, 2010
Kaing Guek Eav (Duch), photo by AFP

I’ve been waiting for Monday’s verdict in the first Khmer Rouge trial for half my journalistic career, and until last March, when the hearings at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia finally got underway, I never quite believed they were ever going to happen.

But the one thing I know about Cambodia after all these years is never to expect the expected. 

You’d think the blindingly obvious verdict would be that Kaing Guek Eav – better known as Duch – the former chief of the S21 detention centre in Phnom Penh, was found guilty and sentenced to the 40 years in prison the prosecutors have asked for.

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Biography

Stephanie Scawen's picture
Stephanie Scawen
Senior Producer
Stephanie Scawen has spent more than a decade covering stories from across Asia.

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