Liar's, Forgers And Paid PR People Posing As Activists - Black PR Against Sarawak Report Exposed

Liar's, Forgers And Paid PR People Posing As Activists - Black PR Against Sarawak Report Exposed

11 Nov 2015

The recent PR campaign against Sarawak Report, supposedly supported by a team of enthusiastic Tweeters and Facebook fans, has accused this writer of being a “liar” and a “forger” and of being a paid “activist posing as a journalist”.

Yet our research, together with the UK’s Independent newspaper, into the anonymous outfit behind this campaign, has shown that these descriptions perfectly fit the accusers instead.

The Independent has today published their investigation and featured our complaint against Facebook and Twitter, for taking inadequate steps to protect victims from this kind of abuse.

Because, it is not only Sarawak Report that is being defamed and abused by this expensively commissioned ‘Black PR’ campaign.

A whole series of innocent and vulnerable people are also being exploited, because their pictures and identities are being stolen and used to create fake characters in a clear act of forgery and lies.

These include Ashrai Rossil (above) a Malaysian student, who experienced huge publicity when he was set upon by thugs during a London street riot. He is depicted by these hired forgers as a fictitious character called Sam Woo, who falsely claims in his tweets that Sarawak Report removes comments by people who disagree with its reports.

 

Spot the name change - Ashrai Rossil, the Malaysian student famous for getting hurt in a gang attack in London
Same picture different ID! Ashrai Rossil, the newspaper photo of the Malaysian student famous for surviving a gang attack in London

“Wow! Post a question on the sawarak report and if they don’t agree with you it gets deleted. I thought they were about transparency?!” [sam woo @Malayobserver2]

Philip Goodeve-Docker - tragically lost to his family, but now cynically utilised to create a fake attacker against SR called 'Harry Draker"
Philip Goodeve-Docker – tragically lost to his family, but now cynically utilised to create a fake attacker against SR called ‘Harry Draker”

Further victims of this form of identity theft and abuse even include people who have died and reputable individuals, whom these fake Twitter accounts associate with seedy call girls and dodgy ‘followers’.

Indeed, as the UK’s Independent newspaper has today reported to an outraged British public, these scammers have dragged in all manner of innocent people into their vendetta against Sarawak Report, in retaliation for our reporting on 1MDB and the corrupt petroleum company PetroSaudi.

A British Artcic explorer, Philip Goodeve-Docker, who recently died tragically after becoming stranded in appalling icy conditions, for example, has been reinvented as a banker named Harry Drakeford, allegedly keen to promote an anonymous defamatory Facebook site called The Real Clare Rewcastle, which accuses Sarawak Report of lying and forging.

Numerous other innocent people have had their photos snatched off from websites and then attached to fictitious characters and Twitter accounts, according to the research by ourselves and The Independent.

Photos have even been changed for the same ID, altering them overnight to a completely different race or age group, while keeping the very same name and identity!

In one case a deceased American named Samuel Everett Morehead was revived to form a Twitter account under Sam Everett, with an unaccountable interest in Malaysia and SR.

Unfortunately the real man in this picture has died, so the opinions are cruelly faked.

Unfortunately the real man in this picture has died, so the opinions are cruelly faked.

Accusing Sarawak Report of secret funding from the pharmaceutical company Novartis!

Accusing Sarawak Report of secret funding from the pharmaceutical company Novartis!

Unfortunately, our researches have shown that Samuel Everett Morehead died in Dallas, Texas back in March 2013.

No respect

No respect

Families of Mr Morehead and others treated in this way have every right to be shocked and to complain at the lack of respect for their loved ones.  However, once the scammers clearly realised that they were using a dead identity they callously switched the details of this fake onto somebody completely different. Meet the new ‘Sam Everett’!

The actual person represented in this picture is one Kelvin Fang, who works as a property consultant in Australia.

The actual person represented in this picture is one Kelvin Fang, who works as a property consultant in Australia.

This new Sam Everett is in fact a chap called Kelvin Fang, from a completely different nationality and part of the world and several decades younger!

In real life Kelvin is a property consultant in Australia and presumably has no idea that his face is being used in this way.

Cynically, the liars and forgers behind his identity claim in his personal statement:

“Opinions/tweets are my own and they are usually serious”.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

 

The real Kelvin Fang
The real Kelvin Fang

How the story is headlined in the Independent

How the story is headlined in the Independent

Yet, despite this string of abuses by paid for PR companies who are also defaming us, we encountered a worrying lack of response and concern from both Facebook and Twitter when we tried to alert them of the problem.

Brave eco-campaigner used to shaft SR
Brave eco-campaigner used to shaft SR

Sarawak Report has been forced to take legal action and to alert the British media over a problem that we believe Facebook and Twitter ought to have responded to right away.

Another well-known face abused by the paid defamers of Sarawak Report was the Turkish Greenpeace environmental campaigner Gizem Arkhan (left).

She endured time in a Russian jail after highlighting the problem of drilling in the Arctic.

Yet, Gizem has been re-invented by the PR campaign as Ella Dooley, whose fake tweets are all designed to poke criticism and accusations against people working for this site.

Fake again.

Fake again – Arctic activist Gizem Arkhan becomes Ella Dooley focused on South East Asia

What’s more these tweets have been deliberately sent on to the professional clients and associates of people working with Sarawak Report in a malicious attempt to intimidate them and damage their livelihoods.

The long list of people used in this way extends to another British travel company executive, who advertises a help line under her name Rosy for the company Responsible Travel in London.

Thanks to the forgers she has now been re-designated as an air hostess working out of KL.

Like all the other fake Twitter accounts, hers was created on October 23rd at the start of the campaign and at the same time that the Facebook site defaming SR was set up.  Her tweets are designed to steer people to look at that Facebook site, which has paid for “promoted content” status on Facebook to get further attention.

 

Rosy or Lilian?
Rosy or Lilian?

Rosy becomes fictitious Lilian Woodfull - who calls SR a liar

Rosy becomes fictitious Lilian Woodfull – who calls SR a liar

One senior British lawyer also abused in this way, Nathan Willmott, was dismayed when Sarawak Report informed him that in his case his real name and photograph is being used for another of these Twitter characters, which has nothing to do with him.

David Begg becomes David  Beg - same photo!

David Begg becomes David Beg – same photo!

He was particularly upset that the forged site makes reference to alleged activities with his family members and confirmed to Sarawak Report that this liberty with his personal life was a fake intrusion.

In another case a senior Irish union representative, who has just retired, named David Begg, found that his photograph and mis-spelt name are being used on an account that attacks Sarawak Report and praises the Malaysian Palm Oil Council.

His office told Sarawak Report that he would not be pleased and they confirmed that Mr Begg has never had a Twitter account in his life.

The long list of people being treated in this way continues.

One Malaysian girl, who had spoken to the press about her ultra-orthodox Muslim views and willingness to be circumcised, had her photo re-invented into a fake character called Rose Verdon – again promoting anti-SR material.

Attacking SR for alleged donation fraud

Attacking SR for alleged donation fraud

Later, the scammers again seem to have had a change of mind about this identity, so a few days later and welcome to the new Rose Verdon below.

Make up your minds before you forge identities?

Make up your minds before you forge identities?

No longer is she an orthodox Muslim girl, but a liberated looking British expat living in KL!

Another fake persona in this campaign goes under the name of Edward Bungaree, who is particularly aggressive against Sarawak Report and like many of the characters is also used to post attacking comments on our site.

Yet in reality his photo comes from a completely different Malaysian chap called Kavin Menon, according to out reverse picture searches.

Altogether, Sarawak Report has identified dozens of these characters, each of one represents an abuse of the identity and privacy of an innocent person, quite apart from taking part in a defamation campaign against Sarawak Report, which is also innocent of the accusations that the people hiding behind these characters are making.

Case to answer by Facebook and Twitter

When Sarawak Report attempted to report these concerns to Facebook and Twitter, explaining that not only were falsehood and untruths being spread on sponsored (paid for) Facebook content, but that ordinary unwitting people were being exploited for their images and identities, we found a shocking lack of response.

These are billion dollar companies, which make their money from people interfacing on the web, but which are virtually impossible to contact via the web themselves, especially to complain.

Does Kavin know he is being faked as Edward Bungaree?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Does Kavin know he is being faked as Edward Bungaree?

 

In the end we were forced to send legal letters, because the complaints procedure for ordinary people with a complaint is so inadequate.  We have discovered that the complaints procedure for Facebook is severely limited and at no point enables you to appeal directly to a customer relations officer.

Once again the false accusation about Novatis by "Edward Bungaree"

Once again the false accusation about Novatis by “Edward Bungaree”

Instead, the company directs you to tick box from a handful of pre-decided categories of complaint, which they have offered you to select.

Quick change, the new photo of Bungaree, placed in the past few hours is another fake, this time the victim is another malaysian
Quick change, the new photo of Bungaree, placed in the past few hours is another fake, the student interested in social justice has become an older teacher!

At no point are you given an opportunity to explain the details of your complaint or the reasons for your concerns. You are not even given the opportunity to say whether you are the victim of the harassment or a third party complainant.

Twitter also operate an automated complaints system, although it does allow the complainant to detail the complaints.

Nevertheless, all the complaints submitted by Sarawak Report and related parties to Facebook and Twitter soon produced pro-forma negative responses, informing us that Facebook’s and Twitter’s ‘Community Teams’ had not judged that the ‘reported issue’ breached their guidelines.

This means that Facebook and Twitter’s Community Teams do not apparently think that making money out of stealing of people’s (including dead people’s) identities in order to used them to aggressively libel a third party for commercial purposes breaches their guidelines.

They were not prepared to take further action to remove either the Facebook site, which is making every effort to discredit and defame Sarawak Report without admitting who they are, or to remove online characters who can be shown to be false and malicious.

 

No choice but to be anonymous in this pro-forma complaints procedure

No choice but to be anonymous in this pro-forma complaints procedure

For this reason Sarawak Report was obliged to hire lawyers to track down Facebook’s own elusive legal representatives, because the only address given by Facebook online is their Palo Alto mail address at 1 Hacker Way.

We were also forced to take the matter to the British media, given the evident concern about abusive PR campaigns which are paying for Facebook sponsored content to promote their defamation and abusing the identities of innocent people.

Fake Laura tweets about SR

Fake Laura tweets about SR

We deplore the tactics of selectively quoting out of context and with malicious intent private messages that were passed to the Swiss PR man Marc Comina by his client Xavier Justo and which he then passed on to third parties in a blatant and concerted attempt to allege that Sarawak Report ‘forged’ the evidence about 1MDB and PetroSaudi.

We note that Mr Comina has failed to respond to our queries as to whether he is directly also behind the dirty online campaign, which UK contacts have informed us was being recently commissioned in London by a Swiss PR company.

We have asked if this is an option available ,for example, to vulnerable young people who might also be harassed in this manner?

Or to people who are being misrepresented by fake characters using their identities?

For the record, Sarawak Report denies and refutes all the lies and accusations made against the Editor of this site, which untruthfully accuse her of criminal actions or willingness to participate in criminal actions and of receiving illicit payments etc etc.

Real Laura never mentions SR on Facebook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real Laura never mentions SR on Facebook

 

Instead of posting malicious lies anonymously, why don't these big spenders put their names to such accusations, or better still sue SR?

Instead of posting malicious lies anonymously, why don’t these big spenders put their names to such accusations, or better still sue SR?

It is in the record that Comina has provided the materials (eg whatsapp messages) that are being abused by this dirty PR campaign.  He and the lawyer Marc Henzolin, with whom he is working supposedly to represent Xavier Justo, have worked hard to convey to the Swiss media the propaganda that Sarawak Report has ‘doctored’ documents and is a paid operative of Malaysian opposition figures.

Henzelen told one Swiss newspaper Le Temps, in an ‘exclusive interview’ with senior writer Sylvain Besson:

Henzelin: My client has attended meetings where the Malaysian opposition and Clare Rewcastle Brown clearly evoked the political use they intend to make the documents they had not read. He considers that the documents have been used unscrupulous way and that some have been changed. But to what extent, what volume, he does not know. What is certain is that he has the impression of having been used, handled. In addition, he has not been paid, so he’s a little angry. [Google Translate Le Temps]

The interviewer is in fact one of Mr Comina’s top Facebook friends and he never asked for Sarawak Report to comment on this defamatory accusation, even though he had our number.

Ex-journalist turned PR man for rich people in trouble

Ex-journalist turned PR man for rich people in trouble

So far, Mr Comina has failed to answer our queries as to whether his actual client is not in fact the jailed Justo but rather the company PetroSaudi, which we have accused of corruptly participating in the theft of billions of dollars from 1MDB.

We ask this because Mr Comina has told journalists that the present advice to Justo from his Swiss PR cum legal team has been to confess to crimes of extortion and suggest that Sarawak Report ‘doctored’ innocent emails from PetroSaudi as a way of getting him an early release.

However, just a few days ago Justo’s legal team dropped that appeal for an early release, leaving him to rot in a Thai jail where he cannot testify against PetroSaudi or 1MDB.

Comina and the black PR campaigners who are using Justo’s materials should therefore stop making false accusations and staging anonymous dirty online campaigns against Sarawak Report if they have an issue with what we have published.

They should come out in the open and sue us in a court of law instead… something they have so far dared not do.

 

READ THE STORY IN THE INDEPENDENT