Ten Westerners arrested in Cambodia for allegedly posting photos on social media showing themselves dancing suggestively should be expelled from the country rather than jailed, their lawyer says.

The 10, including a New Zealander and others from the UK, Canada, Norway and the Netherlands, were arrested last Thursday when police raided a party at a rented villa in the northwestern town of Siem Reap.

The officers found people "dancing pornographically" at an event organisers called a pub crawl. Siem Reap is near the famous Angkor Wat temple complex.

Lawyer Sourng Sophea said he did not know what conditions were like for his detained clients since he had not yet met them in jail.

They face up to a year in prison if convicted, and if they go to trial, it would likely happen in the next few months. He said the families of some of the detainees had contacted him by phone from overseas, but none had come yet to visit.

Sourng Sophea said some of the photos posted by his clients showed them at a party, some drinking by a swimming pool and some of the women in bikinis, but none showed them having sex or exposing themselves.

According to the law, he said, they should be deported or have their visas cancelled, but they should not be held in pretrial detention.

"I admit that they have done something wrong according to morality in Cambodian society, but their crimes did not warrant them being charged or put in jail," Sourng Sophea said.

He said that when the 10 had been taken into custody but not yet charged, he sent a three -page note to the Siem Reap provincial police and prosecutors, asserting they had not committed any serious wrongdoing, were innocent of producing pornography, and should be released, but he was turned down.

- AP