The International Press Institute (IPI) condemns the Malaysian government’s recent refusal to admit IPI’s 2013 Free Media Pioneer award winner, Clare Rewcastle Brown, into the country, and calls on authorities there to reverse this decision immediately.
On July 3, Rewcastle Brown was travelling to the Sarawak state’s administrative capital of Kuching on the island of Borneo to appear in court as part of a civil defamation suit against her, when immigration control turned her away. Rewcastle Brown said that the defamation suit was related to a recent article about one of Sarawak’s powerful political families. She said that the refused entry likely stemmed from her inclusion on a government “blacklist” as a consequence of Radio Sarwak’s critical coverage of local corruption.
In a video interview posted to YouTube by news website Malaysiakini in Kuching’s airport, Rewcastle Brown also said that a transnational corporation and local politician had sued her in Sarawak for defamation.
“In the interest of democracy, Clare Rewcastle Brown must be allowed to appear in court in Sarawak to answer the accusations contained in this lawsuit,” IPI Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie said. “Even more so if those accusations are related to the dissemination of information of public interest.
“The Malaysian government’s behaviour in denying her entrance is unacceptable and is indicative of its reluctance to protect media freedom,” Bethel McKenzie added
Rewcastle Brown is the director and founder of the London-based radio station, Radio Free Sarawak, as well as the news website The Sarawak Report, two outlets that have alleged environmental misconduct and political corruption on the part of both the Malaysian national government, and the regional Sarawak government led by Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud.
Rewcastle Brown told IPI that a court in Sarawak had initiated legal proceedings against her in her absence and that her lawyers counselled “that it was vital to confront the case, which would otherwise leave the way open for numerous people who don’t like what I’m writing to get judgements against me in a kangaroo court.”
Radio Free Sarawak was awarded IPI’s Free Media Pioneer award on May 20 at its 2013 World Congress in Amman, Jordan for its “dogged commitment to pursuing and reporting the news, however difficult.”
In receiving the IPI award, Rewcastle Brown noted that Radio Free Sarwak and it employees have been subject to numerous attacks as a consequence of their work.
“Each of our staff face threats against them and their livelihoods should their identities face exposure,” she said upon receiving the award. “It will lift the hearts of our audiences in the longhouses of Sarawak, who are our dedicated listeners, to know that not only has our little radio station reached out to offer them support, but that our efforts have received the accolade of the wider global community of journalists through this award,” Rewcastle Brown added.
In April, websites of both The Sarawak Report and Radio Free Sarawak experienced cyber attacks in a strategy known as “Distributed Denial of Service” (DDS), in which millions of computers send requests at the same time, overwhelming a server.
The cyber attacks occurred shortly before general elections in Sarawak and Rewcastle Brown blamed the Malaysian government for the attack, which subsequently denied any involvement. Both websites operate remotely from London in order to avoid Malaysian censorship. According to news reports Rewcastle Brown has also received anonymous death threats in the past.
