Malaysia Denies Entry To Journalist

HONG KONG — Malaysian authorities have denied entry to a leading opposition journalist who is the sister-in-law of Gordon Brown, the former British prime minister. 

The journalist, Clare Rewcastle Brown, who was sent back to Singapore, is the founder of Sarawak Report and Radio Free Sarawak, two news outlets that have taken on the Malaysian government on issues like deforestation and corruption in the state of Sarawak. A native of Sarawak, she has been in increasingly contentious battles with local power brokers and officials in the state since setting up the two news outlets in 2010. 

Ms. Rewcastle Brown said she arrived Wednesday at Kuching Airport on an Air Asia flight from Singapore but was denied entry by immigration officials, who detained her and put her on the next flight back to Singapore. Ms. Rewcastle Brown, a British citizen who operates her news sites from London, said in an interview Thursday that she had last been let into Malaysia in 2011.

Malaysia recently held democratic elections in which its prime minister, Najib Razak, was re-elected, but he failed to get more than 50 percent of the vote. Critics said the government used its strong hand over the country’s media to help assure that Mr. Najib remained in power. During the campaign, the Sarawak Report blog was often inaccessible because of what it said were cyberattacks.

Officials in Sarawak state did not comment on the matter. Malaysian officials have said that Radio Free Sarawak is operating illegally because it does not have a license.

Ms. Rewcastle Brown’s news outlets have focused on the leadership of Sarawak’s chief minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, and the wealth he has accumulated while in power, suggesting his control over permitting of logging operations that have led to deforestation has contributed to his family’s wealth, much of it in overseas holdings.

Ms. Rewcastle Brown drew headlines in Britain in 2009 when her husband, Andrew, was accused of benefiting from payments for a cleaner through Prime Minister Brown’s expense accounts. Ms. Rewcastle Brown wrote a letter to The Guardian saying that her husband and the prime minister were sharing the cleaner and the expenses, and the prime minister was cleared of any wrongdoing.