Sarawak Report thumbs nose at Malaysian censors, says won’t be muzzled


1MDB-Clare

(Malay Mail Online) – Despite the latest government attempt to block its site in Malaysia, London-based Sarawak Report founder Clare Rewcastle Brown has vowed to continue publishing any information it may receive on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

In a statement, Rewcastle Brown stood by SR’s previous exposes on the scandal and pointed out that Putrajaya has yet to take legal action against the whistleblower website.

“This is because our information is overwhelming, easily proven and patently substantiated by a mass of corroborative factual evidence,” she said.

“It is because they are not in a position to refute the evidence, that certain members of the government have instead spent the last few weeks doing their best to distract from the issue of misappropriated funds at 1MDB by attacking the integrity of Sarawak Report,” she added.

She labelled the move to block access to SR as a strong-arm tactic by the Malaysian government, but said it would not impede the site’s quest for the truth behind the multi-billion ringgit controversy.

“This line of attack betrays weakness rather than strength,” the SR editor said.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) yesterday confirmed that it has sent out instructions to all service providers in Malaysia to block access to SR’s website, pending investigations into verifying the site’s content.

Last night, Brown said the move was “a blatant attempt to censor” the organisation’s exposures of major corruption through the development fund 1MDB, including the information that nearly US$700 million (RM2.6 billion) of 1MDB related money was funnelled into Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s personal AmBank account in KL just before the last election.

Najib has not denied that the bank account belongs to him but has stressed that he had never taken 1MDB funds for personal gain.

Noting this, Rewcastle Brown said it was clear that the block by MCMC was because the local authorities were afraid that more damning information would be published in future exposes.

“The information has already long been disseminated and backed up by other major global news organisations, so we can only assume that the MCMC is fearful that we are about to bring out further revelations,” she said.

“Sarawak Report will not be impeded in any way by this action in bringing out future information as and when its investigations deliver further evidence.

“This latest blow to media freedom only brings further discredit upon the present administration, who have proven unable to counter the evidence we have presented in any other way,” Rewcastle Brown said.

Brown added that if SR’s exposes were indeed an elaborate scheme involving forgeries and lies as alleged by her critics in the government, she questioned why politicians from both side of the divide had been voicing concern for years about the growing indebtedness and missing billions at 1MDB

“And why are there a mass of official investigations being conducted into this very matter?” she asked.

MCMC yesterday issued a statement and said it has decided to block websites that can “threaten the country’s stability” with contents that “cannot be verified and is being investigated”, after it received “information and complaints from the public”.

 



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