Anonymous Cambodia launched cyberattacks over the weekend against private website DAP news in response to the arrests earlier this month of two members of the international “hacktivist” group’s local arm.

While it wasn’t clear exactly why DAP was a target, Anonymous accused the website of publishing erroneous information. DAP is also owned by media personality Soy Sopheap, who has close ties to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

“Now DAP website was newly created and lost all of its important database,” Anonymous Cambodia wrote on its Facebook page, warning that similar moves will be met with the same result. “If there is no appropriate resolution for our Anonymous members we will hack into the system of other government ministries, internet companies and the banks to destroy all databases.”

Sopheap said that the attacks, which occurred at about 10pm on Sunday, almost destroyed the entire database and kept the site down until 10am yesterday.

“We don’t know why the group attacked our website and why Anonymous has continued warning about attacks on us,” he said.

“I would like to appeal to Anonymous Cambodia to use their knowledge for the benefit of society rather than used in the wrong way, because we employed about 100 Khmer staff to work in our office.”

Khieu Kanharith, minister of information, said the attacks represent a “wake-up call for everybody to be aware of cyber security”.

Two 21-year-old members of Anonymous were arrested on April 7 over claims they launched attacks on several government websites.

Bun King Mongkolpanha and Chu Songheng face accusations of computer hacking that can carry prison terms of up to two years.

Songheng told police he had not participated in any attacks and was merely trying to learn hacking skills. Police say they arrested the pair after an eight-month investigation with the help of the FBI.

Dim Chaoseng, the pair’s lawyer, said yesterday that a trial date had yet to be set and that he would receive the case file today.