Whistleblower website editor banned from entering Sarawak

VIDEO | 4.20 min

Clare Rewcastle Brown, editor of whistleblower website Sarawak Report and Radio Free Sarawak, was denied entry into Sarawak today when she was attempting to enter the state to prepare her defence for a defamation suit brought against her. 

Arriving from Singapore at the Kuching International airport at 1.15pm, the avid critic of Sarawak state administration and Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud was issued a notice of refusal of entry by the state Immigration Department and deported back to Singapore at 3.40pm. 
 
In a short video recorded by her lawyer's staff at the airport, Brown said that she was well aware that she was on Sarawak's "blacklist" but she had to attempt to enter Kuching to prepare her legal defence. 
 
"I feel compelled to make the effort to come to Sarawak because I wish to defend myself, stand up to accusations made against me and meet my lawyers," she said. 
 
Brown explained that the plaintiff was a transnational company that is listed on the stock exchange in the UK and Europe. She refused to name the plaintiff for now. 

'Come sue me in the UK'

She said that she did not believe that she will be given a fair trial in Malaysia because the plaintiff was influential and challenged them to sue her in the UK. 
 
"If they have a complaint with me, they should bring that complaint to the UK, where they have a have a business, where they have offices and registered on the stock exchange.  
 
"There is absolutely no proper reason not to bring a case against me in the UK, if they believe they have one," she said. 
 
Although she did not reveal much about the case, she did not mentioned that the company is trying to obtain a judgement here in order to be enforced in the UK. 
 
"I think that those who are seeking to pursue me in the courts here should put their actions where their mouths are and have the gut to come sue me in the UK," she said.