Sarawak Report editor unfazed by arrest warrant, calls it ‘ridiculous’

Whistleblower website Sarawak Report has been blocked by Malaysian authorities since July 19 for its reports on troubled state investment firm 1MDB. Now, the site's founder and editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown is wanted by the Malaysian police for 'activities that are detrimental to parliamentary democracy'. – Sarawak Report screenshot pic, August 4, 2015.

Sarawak Report editor and founder Clare Rewcastle-Brown today said that she is unfazed by the Malaysian police's issuance of an arrest warrant against her.

Bukit Aman's Criminal Investigations Department (CID) today issued a warrant against her and said it was seeking Interpol's assistance to detain Clare, who is a UK citizen.

But Clare said that the authorities' move was "ridiculous".

"Am I quaking in my shoes... actually not," she told The Malaysian Insider today.

She also said that the recent moves by the Malaysian government has resulted in her getting plenty of media attention and that she was "not likely" to be praising Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Clare also said that the authorities' actions merely indicates that Malaysia is on the path to become a "failed state".

"If they want to cement Malaysia in the category of basket case, failed state, then this is absolutely the path to take," she said.

The warrant of arrest issued today comes just over a week after Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that the government might seek her extradition from the UK.

I am merely an investigative journalist who has been doing my job, by unravelling one hell of an international scandal involving people in high places and the grand larceny of public monies. – Clare Rewcastle Brown

She was to be investigated under Section 124B of the Penal Code for activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy, a law that has been widely used in recent crackdown and arrests of activists.

"I am still unclear whether the agents of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak are accusing me of 'forging false documents' or obtaining documents through 'criminal leakages', since they have simultaneously accused me of both in the past few days and have been rounding up all sorts of senior investigators to try and find out who might have passed me such leaks.

"They need to make up their minds about this before they bring their charges and they really ought to produce some substantive and convincing evidence of their other accusation that I am part of some international plot intent on falsely accusing the prime minister of crimes for reasons unknown," Rewcastle Brown said in a statement released in response to the warrant issued for her arrest.

"I am merely an investigative journalist who has been doing my job, by unravelling one hell of an international scandal involving people in high places and the grand larceny of public monies," she added.

Her website was already blocked by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) on July 19, citing national stability concerns.

Since early this year, she had published a series of damning exposes against state investment arm 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and those behind it, including Najib.

- TMI