A gagged Press, a muffled Tribe, and a damned Dam : a study on how the Kayan tribe on Borneo suffers from a censored media.

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to highlight the interaction in the press between the indigenous people -the Orang Ulu- in Sarawak state, Borneo, and the Malaysian government. The focus lies on the Kayan tribe in the Uma Juman settlement, and how the government controlled media and lack of an open two-way dialogue affects them. A people without freedom of speech are a people in permanent danger of abuse by the state; without free expression no political action is possible as is no resistance to injustice and oppression. Thus, without freedom of expression, elections have little meaning. Without this freedom it is futile to expect political freedom or consequently economic freedom. Malaysia's complex relationship between ethnicity and politics is being played out through issues of media freedom. On the backdrop of these conditions, the guiding research question is: How does censorship affect the minorities in terms of Vision 2020? Vision 2020 (Wawasan 2020) is a project aiming to take Malaysia into a developed country by the year 2020. This project has included a Hydro Electric Power Dam; the Bakun Dam. The dam has been the subject of much controversy in terms of media censorship; thence it caters for a solid and relevant case study.