Liar's, Forgers And Paid PR People Posing As Activists - Black PR Against Sarawak Report Exposed
11 Nov 2015
Reproduced With Permission
Same
picture different ID! Ashraf Rossli, the newspaper photo of the
Malaysian student famous for surviving a gang attack in London
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 Ashraf Rossli (above) a Malaysian student, who gained
world sympathy when he was robbed on camera during the London riot. Ashraf 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.
“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”
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 Arctic 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.
Unfortunately the real man in this picture has died, so the opinions
are cruelly faked. Philip’s father, Nigel Goodeve-Docker, told
The Independent “It’s very distasteful. It is cheap to use the
photograph of a dead person who can’t complain.”
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.
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
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, the scammers then callously switched the photo for
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.
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!
The real Kelvin Fang
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 this identity claim in his personal statement:
“Opinions/tweets are my own and they are usually serious”.
Nothing could be further from the truth!
Yet, despite this string of abuses by paid 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 to the
problem.
Brave eco-campaigner used to shaft SR
Sarawak Report was forced to take legal action and to inform the
British media over an issue that we believe Facebook and Twitter ought
to have rectified right away by removing the offending ‘sock puppets’.
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 a different
environmentalist called Ella Dooley, whose fake tweets are all designed
to poke criticism and accusations against people working for this site.
Fake again – Arctic activist Gizem Arkhan becomes Ella Dooley focused on
South East Asia
Another use to which these sock puppets have been put has been to
deliberately tweet falsehoods to the professional clients and associates
of people working with Sarawak Report, in a malicious attempt to
undermine their business and damage their livelihoods.
Rosy or Lilian?
The long list of people used in this way includes 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 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!
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 leader, 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
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?
No longer is she an orthodox Malay girl, but a 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 reverse picture searches.
Altogether, Sarawak Report has identified dozens of these characters,
each of one of which 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
Does Kavin know he is being faked as Edward Bungaree?
However, 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 we found them virtually impossible to
contact via the web themselves, especially to complain.
Finally we had to send legal letters, because the complaints
procedure is so inadequate. At no point can you lay out the details of
your complaint in writing to Facebook, neither can you appeal directly
to a customer relations officer.
Once again the false accusation about Novatis by “Edward Bungaree”
Instead, the company merely provides a tick box option 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, the student interested in social justice has become an
older teacher!
There is no space to explain the details of your complaint or the
reasons for your concerns. You are not even given the opportunity to say
whether you yourself are the victim of the harassment or a third party
complainant.
Twitter does allow the complainant to detail the complaints, but it produced no better result.
All the complaints submitted by Sarawak Report and related parties to
Facebook and Twitter rapidly triggered pro-forma negative responses,
informing us that Facebook’s and Twitter’s ‘Community Teams’ had not
judged that the ‘reported issue’ breached their guidelines.
Twitter’s standard brush off reply stated:
“We reviewed the account and content reported and are unable to
take action given that we could not determine a clear violation of the
Twitter rules surrounding abusive behaviour.”
Neither company offered a right of appeal.
The impression thereby given is Facebook and Twitter’s Community
Teams consider that making money from stealing of people’s identities
(including those of the dead) in order to use them to aggressively
libel a third party for commercial purposes does not breach their
guidelines.
No choice but to be anonymous in this pro-forma complaints procedure
To take further action complainants are obliged to hire lawyers to
track down Facebook’s own elusive legal representatives at their
address: 1 Hacker Way, Palo Alto.
Fake Laura tweets about SR
We have asked if this is an option available, for example, to vulnerable young people?
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
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.
Till now Mr Comina has failed to respond to
our queries as to whether he is also behind this dirty online campaign,
which UK contacts have informed us was being recently commissioned in
London by a Swiss PR company.
Instead
of posting malicious lies anonymously, why don’t these big
spenders put
their names to such accusations, or better still sue SR?
Meanwhile, it is on the record that Comina has supplied to
journalists the materials (eg whatsapp messages) that are being abused
by this dirty PR campaign.
The lawyer Marc Henzolin, with whom he is working supposedly to
represent Xavier Justo, told one Swiss newspaper Le Temps, in an
‘exclusive interview':
“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 from Le Temps is one of Mr Comina’s own 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
Mr Comina has further failed to answer as to whether his actual
client is not in fact the company PetroSaudi, rather than the jailed Mr
Justo.
We have accused PetroSaudi of corruptly participating in the theft of
billions of dollars from 1MDB, partly thanks to evidence provided by
Justo, whom the company then denounced for blackmail.
Mr Comina has told journalists that the present advice to Justo from
his Swiss PR cum legal team has been to confess to PetroSaudi’s
allegations of extortion and allege that Sarawak Report ‘doctored’
innocent emails from PetroSaudi in order to get an early release in
Thailand.
However, just a few days ago Justo’s own legal team, of which
Henzelin is part, dropped his 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 ops, who are using his material, should
therefore stop making false accusations and staging anonymous dirty
online campaigns against Sarawak Report.
If their employers 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.
Sarawak Report
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