Anti-Taib campaign to be taken to the streets of London and Ottawa

BMF

International human rights and environmental campaigners announce protests against Taib family companies in London and Ottawa – indigenous leaders from Malaysia to lead the protests

OTTAWA (CANADA) / LONDON (UK). Defenders of Sarawak’s indigenous communities and the Borneo rainforest have announced street protests in the United Kingdom and Canada against the blatant corruption of the Sarawak Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud. The protests will take place outside two property companies in downtown Ottawa and central London that are controlled by the Taib family. The two companies, the Canadian Sakto Corporation and the British Ridgeford Properties Ltd. are both named on a blacklist of 49 secret Taib companies that was released earlier this week by the Swiss Bruno Manser Fund.

The protest in Ottawa will be led by Mutang Urud, an indigenous leader from Sarawak who has lived in exile in Canada since the early 1990s. Mutang was arrested and placed in solitary confinement by the Taib government in February 1992 for running the Sarawak Indigenous Peoples’ Association (SIPA). On 10 December 1992, Mutang spoke before the 47th UN General Assemly in New York about the plight of Sarawak’s indigenous peoples.

The protest in London will be led by Peter John Jaban and Clare Rewcastle Brown. Peter John Jaban is the DJ of Radio Free Sarawak, an independent short-wave radio station which is broadcast from London. Peter John is the grandson of an Iban head-hunter from the rainforests of Sarawak. Clare Rewcastle Brown, a former BBC journalist, is the editor of Sarawak Report, a news website focussing on governance issues in the East Malaysian state on Borneo. Radio Free Sarawak and Sarawak Report were featured in the London Evening Standard earlier this week.

Time and venue of the anti-Taib street campaigns:

Monday, 28 February 2011

UK: 9:30 a.m. (GMT) outside Ridgeford Properties Ltd. at 10 Weymouth Street, London W1W 5BX

Canada: 12:00 p.m. (Eastern Time, GMT-5) outside Sakto Corporation at 333 Preston Street, Ottawa

You are welcome to join us and/or report on this event! – Phone contacts for further information:

Ottawa: Mutang Urud +1 514 746-4811

London: Clare Rewcastle Brown +44 77 10 20 76 97

International campaign coordination (BMF) +41 61 261 94 74

Bruno Manser Fonds, Socinstrasse 37, 4051 Basel / Switzerland, +41 61 261 94 74

www.bmf.ch, www.stop-timber-corruption.org

Follow our campaign on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bmfonds