UN expert reprimands Switzerland over complaint against Bruno Manser Fund

Swiss activist Bruno Manser highlighting deforestation in Malaysia in 1999. He went missing in Borneo in 2000 and was officially declared dead five years later. Keystone / Doris Kraettli)

Michel Forst, UN Special Rapporteur for environmental defenders, has reprimanded the Swiss government in a letter. He criticises Switzerland for doing too little to prevent an intimidation suit against the Bruno Manser Fund in Basel.

A spokesman for the Federal Office for the Environment confirmed to the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA on Friday that it had received the letterExternal link. The letter will be answered, he said. However, the office is not yet saying anything about the timing and content of the reply.

Forst had sent the letter on August 8, 2023 and asked for a reply by October 7. The letter has since been published on the website of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

In it, Forst expresses “grave concern” about several legal steps taken by the Malaysian-Canadian entrepreneurial couple Jamilah Taib Murray and Sean Murray and their company Sakto Corporation against the Bruno Manser Fund. He pointed to the “apparent use” of court proceedings, the lodging of criminal complaints and the PR campaign by Sakto and its Swiss-based agents to “silence” the environmental organisation and its director Lukas Straumann. This, he said, would prevent the Bruno Manser Fund from exercising its rights under the Aarhus Convention.

+ Who was Bruno Manser?

Forst refers to Article 3 paragraph 8 of this UN Convention, which regulates rights in matters of environmental protection. It requires that persons exercising their rights in accordance with this Convention not be “penalised, persecuted or harassed in any way” for doing so. The Special Rapporteur writes that he is “deeply concerned” that Switzerland is not fulfilling its obligation under the Aarhus Convention to ensure that precisely this is prevented.

He calls on the government to exhaust all legal means to prevent so-called Slapp lawsuits (strategic lawsuits against public participation). In addition, it must provide information on the ethical guidelines for lawyers in Slapp lawsuits.

+ Rooting out corruption in the forests of Borneo

Litigation still open

The letter was prompted by several legal actions against the Bruno Manser Fund. Most recently, a hearing took place on August 16, 2023, before the Civil Court of Basel City. The Taib-Murray couple, represented by the Basel law firm Vischer, sued for alleged violation of personality rights. The legal dispute is not yet over, as both parties were unable to reach an agreement during settlement talks.

The background is various publications by the Bruno Manser Fund about Jamilah Taib Murray. She is the daughter of Abdul Taib Mahmud, who served as head of government of the Malaysian state of Sarawak for 33 years. There, the environmental activist Bruno Manser, who was declared missing in 2005, fought with the indigenous Penan people against the deforestation of the rainforest.

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here. 

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].