Cambodia bans Pokemon Go game at genocide museum

Cambodia bans the game Pokemon Go from a former Khmer Rouge torture center.(photo grabbed from Reuters video)
Cambodia bans the game Pokemon Go from a former Khmer Rouge torture center.(photo grabbed from Reuters video)

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (Reuters) — Cambodia on Wednesday (August 10) banned the game Pokemon Go from a former Khmer Rouge torture center and prison after players showed up at the site, now a genocide museum, searching for the virtual cartoon characters.

It is the latest effort to rein in enthusiasts of the game, which has been blamed for a rash of accidents and has prompted safety warnings after players glued to their phones stumbled, were robbed or wandered into dangerous places.

Game players use mobile devices to search for virtual Pokemon characters that appear to pop up at office spaces, restaurants, museums and other places where people are known to gather.

The director of Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum said a handful of Cambodian teenagers were turfed out on Wednesday and that the game had been banned in the precincts of the memorial to Cambodia’s “Killing Fields” genocide.

Although no one was spotted on Wednesday playing the game, several tourists at the museum expressed their love for Pokemon Go.

“Why I play this game? It’s because I love Pokemon and this (has) the Pokemons of the first generation, who are there (in the game) and I am a big player of video games. I love it,” said French tourist, Benjamin Le Guen.

Playing the game at a memorial site was not appropriate, said one visitor to the converted school marking the communist regime’s four-year reign of terror that killed at least 1.8 million people.

In the United States, the U.S. Holocaust Museum has asked players to desist, saying that playing on its premises is “extremely inappropriate.”