(CPJ/IFEX) – Murray Hiebert, the “Far Eastern Economic Review” (FEER) correspondent imprisoned in Kuala Lumpur on 11 September 1999, was released on the morning of 11 October, according to a spokesman for Dow Jones, which publishes the magazine. **Updates IFEX alerts of 14 September, 13 September and 19 May 1999, 3 October and 5 September […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – Murray Hiebert, the “Far Eastern Economic Review” (FEER)
correspondent imprisoned in Kuala Lumpur on 11 September 1999, was released
on the morning of 11 October, according to a spokesman for Dow Jones, which
publishes the magazine.
**Updates IFEX alerts of 14 September, 13 September and 19 May 1999, 3
October and 5 September 1997**
“My spirits are in good shape and I managed to come out in one piece,”
Hiebert told Canadian television from Hong Kong (quoted in Reuters).
Hiebert’s lawyers, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and Stuart Karle, and Canadian
diplomat Peter Girling greeted him upon his release from the Sungai Buloh
prison. They drove him to a hotel and then to the Canadian High Commission
where a party was held in his honor, according to Richard Toefl, Vice
President of Corporate Communications at Dow Jones.
Hiebert flew to Hong Kong on 12 October, and will fly to Washington, D.C.,
on Friday 15 October, where he will join his wife and children.
“Apart from a swelling in the second toe of his left foot, for which he had
received treatment at the Seremban Hospital, he is in fine condition,” said
Muhammad Shafee, who was quoted in “The New Straits Times”.
Hiebert, 50, served four weeks in prison for what the Malaysian Court of
Appeals deemed contempt of court stemming from “See You in Court,” his
September 1997 “Far Eastern Economic Review” article about litigiousness in
Malaysian society. One lawsuit highlighted in the piece was brought against
the Kuala Lumpur International School by Chandra Sri Ram, the wife of a
prominent judge, after the school booted her son off the debating team.
Hiebert wrote that the case had moved rapidly through the court system and
noted that the student’s father, Gopal Sri Ram, was a prominent judge.
Chandra later brought the contempt suit against Hiebert, despite the fact
that the original suit was settled out of court.
On 11 September, a three-judge panel upheld an earlier high court conviction
and ordered Hiebert to be jailed for six weeks, later reducing his term to
four weeks for good behavior.
CPJ protested Hiebert’s imprisonment in a 13 September letter to Malaysian
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, expressing outrage at the court’s blatant
disregard for freedom of the press. Hiebert’s sentencing made Malaysia the
only Commonwealth country to have imprisoned a journalist on contempt
charges in half a century, according to his lawyers.
Hiebert has been unable to leave Malaysia since 1997 because his passport
was confiscated when legal proceedings began.
