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Radio Free Sarawak ( ms, Radio Sarawak Bebas) is a
pirate radio Pirate radio or a pirate radio station is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license. In some cases, radio stations are considered legal where the signal is transmitted, but illegal where the signals are received—especially ...
station established by environmental and anti-corruption activist Clare Rewcastle Brown and helmed by former
Cats FM Cats FM is a private FM radio station airing from Jalan Bako, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. The radio covers areas of Sarawak and Brunei. The radio airs in Malay and Iban. The station used to air programmes in English and Mandarin Chinese. Cats ...
presenter
Peter John Jaban Peter John Jaban is a DJ on Radio Free Sarawak and a human rights campaigner for Sarawak, Malaysia. Early career He worked in the Land and Survey Office in Sarawak's capital Kuching but resigned in 2006. He then worked as a DJ in Cats FM. He wa ...
(''Papa Orang Utan''), Christina Suntai who graduated from
Florida Technical College Florida Technical College is a for profit college with multiple campuses in Florida. Established in 1982, FTC offers associate's and bachelor's degrees as well as diploma programs on six campuses: Cutler Bay, DeLand, Orlando, Kissimmee, Pembroke ...
in computer science and computer programming, and Michael Ngau. First broadcast on 16 November 2010, the station can be received by shortwave on 15420 kHz. It also produced
podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
s for its programmes daily from 1100–1300 UTC or 7:00–9:00 pm at
Sarawak Sarawak (; ) is a state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the Malaysian state of Sabah to the northeast, ...
local time (
UTC+8 UTC+08:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +08:00. With an estimated population of 1.708 billion living within the time zone, roughly 24% of the world population, it is the most populous time zone in the world, as well as a ...
). The station received wide publicity in Malaysia after the brief disappearance of Jaban. However it was later discovered that he had gone into hiding voluntarily. On 15 November 2014, the radio suspended its shortwave transmission services and claimed the Sarawak state government has jammed its service.


Purpose

In its own words, "Radio Free Sarawak is the independent radio station that brings you the news you want to hear, not what others want you to hear."Radio Free Sarawak.

" ''About Radio Free Sarawak'' Retrieved on 3 April 2011. In a report by the
London Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...
, it was stated that the station aims to "expose the alleged corruption of Taib Mahmud, Chief Minister of ... Sarawak ... and bring an end to his 30-year rule."London Evening Standard. "." ''Gordon Brown's sister-in-law tackles corruption in Borneo'' Retrieved on 3 April 2011. The station can be seen as an attempt to by-pass the control of mass media outlets in Sarawak which are controlled by Taib's government and logging companies.


The operators


Clare Rewcastle Brown

Born in colonial Sarawak to British parents, Brown is best known as an environmental and anti-corruption activist who started her career as a journalist with the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
in 1983. In 2008, she returned to Sarawak to report on a by-election and secretly filmed companies clearing rainforests for oil palm plantations. In 2010, she anonymously founded the Malaysia-focused blog ''
Sarawak Report ''Sarawak Report'' is an opinion, commentary, and political activism blog focused on environmental and corruption issues in Malaysia. It has been largely self-published and operated from London since 2010 by Clare Rewcastle Brown. The blog h ...
'' to advocate for environmental causes, indigenous rights and anti-corruption. Incidentally, Brown is the sister-in-law of former British Prime Minister,
Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Tony B ...
.


Peter John Jaban

Better known by his on-air pseudonym, ''Papa Orang Utan'', Jaban is an
Iban IBAN or Iban or Ibán may refer to: Banking * International Bank Account Number Ethnology * Iban culture The Ibans or Sea Dayaks are a branch of the Dayak people, Dayak people on the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. It is believed that the ...
from
Sarawak Sarawak (; ) is a state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the Malaysian state of Sabah to the northeast, ...
and a former civil servant with the Land and Survey Office of Kuching. He was also a former DJ of the state-owned
Cats FM Cats FM is a private FM radio station airing from Jalan Bako, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. The radio covers areas of Sarawak and Brunei. The radio airs in Malay and Iban. The station used to air programmes in English and Mandarin Chinese. Cats ...
radio station.Dayak Baru.

" ''The people behind Radio Free Sarawak'' Retrieved on 3 April 2011 Jaban worked the airwaves for that station from 1996-1999. Jaban also served as the Deputy Chairperson of the Sarawak Dayak Iban Association and was active as a
human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
activist in Sarawak. He is now actively involved with the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement, a non-profit organisation based in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
,
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. In June 2012, Jaban returned to Sarawak purportedly for a medical check up in
Parti Keadilan Rakyat The People's Justice Party ( ms, Parti Keadilan Rakyat , often known simply as KEADILAN or PKR) is a Reformism, reformist politics of Malaysia, political party in Malaysia, formed in 2003 by a merger of the National Justice Party and the olde ...
's Miri Branch Chairman Dr.Michael Teo's clinic, when he was accosted by three men from Dr.Michael's car. A press statement released by Jaban's
Democratic Action Party The Democratic Action Party (abbreviation: DAP; ms, Parti Tindakan Demokratik; ; ta, ஜனநாயக செயல் கட்சி) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Malaysia. As one of four component parties of the ...
lawyer Alan Ling Sie Kiong indicated that prior to that, Jaban was stopped at Immigration upon his entry and was told that he would be questioned by the
Malaysian Special Branch The Special Branch or SB ( Malay: ''Cawangan Khas'') is an intelligence agency attached to the Royal Malaysia Police. The SB is empowered to acquire and develop intelligence on internal and external threats to the nation, subversive activiti ...
.


Awards

Radio Free Sarawak received the "Free Media Pioneer" award from the
International Press Institute International Press Institute (IPI) is a global organisation dedicated to the promotion and protection of press freedom and the improvement of journalism practices. The institution was founded by 34 editors from 15 countries at Columbia University ...
(IPI) ahead of
World Press Freedom Day The United Nations General Assembly declared May 3 to be World Press Freedom Day or just World Press Day, observed to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the righ ...
in 2013.


Reactions


Arrests

Podcasts of Radio Free Sarawak have also been distributed via CDs and VCDs together with TV Free Sarawak into the interior of Sarawak where the internet penetration is still low. However, on 6 January 2011, there was an incident where the activists and lawyers possessing such materials were detained by the police and home ministry officials and the materials were confiscated, citing the possible violation of Film Censorship Act and section 4(1) of the
Sedition Act (Malaysia) The Sedition Act 1948 ( ms, Akta Hasutan 1948) in Malaysia is a law prohibiting discourse deemed as seditious. The act was originally enacted by the colonial authorities of British Malaya in 1948 to contain the local communist insurgence. The ac ...
. The activists were supposed to be charged in magistrate court on 7 February, but home ministry officials did not turn up.


Government probe

The Sarawak Barisan Nasional had stated that they would like to see legal action taken against Radio Free SarawakThe Star.

." ''Sarawak BN seeking action against Radio Free Sarawak'' Retrieved on 3 April 2011 and the Ministry of Home Affairs (Malaysia), Home Ministry of Malaysia confirmed that an investigation was being made against the station as it was spreading "malicious lies and threatening unity and harmony among races".The Malaysian Insider. "." ''Home Ministry to probe Radio Free Sarawak'' Retrieved on 3 April 2011


Online downtime

The website of Radio Free Sarawak as well as their podcast from iTunes has been inaccessible since 9 April 2011 due to unknown reasons."Sarawak Report Election Monitoring Reports: "." ''Radio Free Sarawak Website blocked'' Retrieved on 10 April 2011 The inaccessibility of the website coincides with the campaigning period of the bitterly contested 2011 Sarawak elections and may be a distributed
Denial of service In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connec ...
attack. Nonetheless, the station continued their daily one-hour broadcast on shortwave from 1000 UTC - 1100 UTC. Radio Free Sarawak's sister site, ''
Sarawak Report ''Sarawak Report'' is an opinion, commentary, and political activism blog focused on environmental and corruption issues in Malaysia. It has been largely self-published and operated from London since 2010 by Clare Rewcastle Brown. The blog h ...
'' has also been subject to a massive cyber attack although effort is being made to get both the websites back into operation."Malaysiakini:

" ''Sarawak Report under massive cyber attack'' Retrieved on 10 April 2011 The founder, Clare Rewcastle-Brown, has commented that the attacks are "a full admission by BN that our insights and investigations have been causing them major difficulties".


See also

*
Sarawak Report ''Sarawak Report'' is an opinion, commentary, and political activism blog focused on environmental and corruption issues in Malaysia. It has been largely self-published and operated from London since 2010 by Clare Rewcastle Brown. The blog h ...
*
List of radio stations in Malaysia This is a list of radio stations in Malaysia, ordered by location and frequency. Frequency varies in different states. There are a total of 24 private and 44 government-owned radio stations in Malaysia. Stations owned by the government operate un ...
*
Sarawak state election, 2011 The tenth Sarawak state election was held on Saturday, 16 April 2011 after nomination for candidates on Wednesday, 6 April 2011. The purpose of the election was to elect 71 representatives to the Sarawak State Assembly. The ninth state assembly ...


References


External links

*
The fight for Sarawak
on the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...

Radio Free Sarawak gets ready for election
Free Malaysia Today {{coord missing, Malaysia Radio stations in Malaysia Whistleblowing in Malaysia Internet radio in Sarawak Politics of Sarawak Sarawak 2010 establishments in Malaysia 2014 disestablishments in Malaysia Radio stations established in 2010 Radio stations disestablished in 2014