A Judgement Day? Not, in Cambodia!

Cambodian government orders removal of 'Judgement Day' adverts

May 18, 2011 6:19 AM
By Sapa-dpa

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Authorities in Phnom Penh have told a local advertising firm to take down billboards claiming that May 21 would see the beginning of the end of the world, national media reported on Wednesday.

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A sticker is viewed on the car of a participant in a movement that is proselytising that the world will end this May 21, Judgement Day, in New York City. The Christian based movement, which claims thousands of supporters around the country and world, was founded by the Oakland, Calif.-based Harold Camping. Camping is president of Family Stations Inc., a religious broadcasting network that promotes the belief that May 21, 2011 is Judgement Day. Camping claims to have come to this date by a deep and complex study of religious texts. Camping was wrong on his prior end-of-the-world prediction in 1994.

Photograph by: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Credit: Getty Images

Judgement Day, May 21, 2011. The Bible Guarantees It

The adverts, posted by a US evangelical group called Family Radio, state: "Judgement Day, May 21, 2011. The Bible Guarantees It."

Family Radio predicted that all souls would be judged on Saturday with worldwide chaos in store for five months until earth's destruction on October 21.

Pol Sopheap, the general manager of the Cambo Advertising Co, told the Cambodia Daily newspaper that city authorities had ordered his firm to remove the messages from five billboards.

The Information Ministry said the billboards must be removed "to avoid confusion among the public and to ensure public order".

Family Radio said its billboards have proven highly effective in transmitting its message.

"They are placed in many US, Canadian and foreign cities not only by Family Radio but other organisations and individuals as well," Family Radio's website said, adding that there were more than "2, 000 billboards, posters, and bus posters throughout the world with many going up weekly".

Pol Sopheap said the contract for the adverts was scheduled to end Saturday.

Cambodia's 15 million people are predominantly Buddhist. In 2007, the government banned Christian groups from proselytising after reports that people were being tricked into converting from Buddhism through material incentives