The newspaper's final front page was aimed at marking a low point for a country that just over three years ago saw tens of thousands of protesters take to the streets in a pro-democracy movement that hoped to topple long-serving ruler Prime Minister Hun Sen.

At the time, Cambodians mobilised to protest the results of a 2013 election that the opposition said were rigged. As journalists closed its doors for the last time early on Monday morning, the independent Phnom Penh-based newspaper the Cambodia Daily had one last headline for the government it tirelessly worked to keep in check for more than 24 years: "Descent Into Outright Dictatorship". “When the Cambodia Daily is shut down, it means press freedom in Cambodia is finished,” said Chhorn Chansy, a 35-year-old Cambodian who is news editor on the paper. The Cambodia Daily newspaper, which published its last edition on Monday, said it had been forced to close after being given one month to pay a crippling $6.3 million in back taxes. "The power to tax is the power to destroy ... and after 24 years, one month and 15 days, the Cambodian Government has destroyed The Cambodia Daily, a special and singular part of Cambodia's free press," the newspaper said in a statement. Eighteen radio stations were also ordered off the air last month and local radio stations have been stopped from leasing time to the United States-funded Radio Free Asia and Voice of America. “We cannot allow foreigners to use Khmers to kill Khmers any more,” he said, referring to the Khmer Rouge genocide that destroyed Cambodia in the 1970s.
The Cambodia Daily newspaper announces it will publish its final edition after being ordered to pay USD$6.3 million in taxes as a result of an investigation, initiated by Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Sen, into private companies operating in Cambodia.