Steven Gan
| Steven Gan | |
|---|---|
| Native name | 颜重庆 |
| Born | c. 1963 (age 53–54) |
| Nationality | Malaysia |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Known for | founding and editing Malaysiakini |
| Awards |
International Press Freedom Award (2000) Free Media Pioneer Award (2001) |
International Press Freedom Award (2000)
Steven Gan (simplified Chinese: 颜重庆; traditional Chinese: 顏重慶; pinyin: Yán Chóngqìng; born c. 1963) is a Malaysian journalist known for co-founding and editing the political news website Malaysiakini (English: "Malaysia Today"), Malaysia's "first and only" independent news source. In 2000, he was awarded the International Press Freedom Award of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Gan received a degree in political economy from an Australian university in 1989. He began his journalistic career in print, as a freelancer for a Hong Kong-based newspaper. In 1991, he covered the Gulf War from Baghdad. In 1994, he returned to Malaysia, where he became a reporter for the new Malaysian daily The Sun. There he struggled against both government regulation and the self-censorship of The Sun's editors.
In 1995, he led a team of reporters that discovered that 59 inmates, primarily Bangladeshis, had died in the Semenyih immigration detention camp of the preventable diseases typhoid and beriberi. When Gan's editors refused to publish the story for fear of government reprisal, Gan passed the information to the immigrant rights organisation Tenaganita. Tenaganita publicised the reporters' findings, and its director, Irene Fernandez, was subsequently threatened with imprisonment for "publishing false news". Fernandez's trials and appeals from the case would last thirteen years, ending in her 2008 acquittal by the Kuala Lumpur Criminal High Court.
...
Wikipedia