Clare Rewcastle Brown

Clare Rewcastle Brown (born 20 June 1959) is a British environmental and anti-corruption activist, author, blogger and advocate journalist. Born in the former British Crown Colony of Sarawak (now part of Malaysia), she is the founder and operator of the Sarawak Report blog and pirate radio station Radio Free Sarawak which are openly critical of the Barisan Nasional-led state and federal governments of Sarawak and Malaysia. In 2017, her blog Sarawak Report gained wide recognition for its original and early exposure of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal. Early life, education and career Rewcastle Brown was born in colonial Sarawak on 20 June 1959 to British parents (before the territory formed a part of Malaysia) and attended a local primary school. Her father was head of special branch in what is Malaysia today when it was still a British colony. Her mother, Karis, was a midwife who helped look after indigenous babies at remote clinics. She moved to the United Kingdom when she was eight, attended private boarding school and subsequently obtained her master's degree in international relations from the London School of Economics. She became a journalist, joining the BBC World Service in 1983. Clare Rewcastle Brown is married to Andrew Brown, the younger brother of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Andrew was implicated for accepting payments for a cleaner through the Prime Minister's expenses during the expenses scandal in May 2009. In a letter to The Guardian, Rewcastle Brown hit back at the accusations, saying her husband and Gordon were both using the cleaner's services under a "very ordinary" arrangement and sharing the expenses. The Telegraph, the newspaper which ran the story, later acknowledged that Andrew never received any improper benefit. Sarawak Report and Radio Free Sarawak During a visit to Sarawak in 2005 to speak at an environment conference, Rewcastle Brown was asked by local journalists and activists to help publicize the deforestation in the state. However, when she began probing into the issue, she became blacklisted from the state and received death threats.