Police must act with fear or favour and bring to book those who assaulted two reporters and threatened him during the anti-Lynas rally, says Penang CM.
“Should anything happen to me, Umno and Perkasa have to bear full responsibility. The police must show that they can perform their duties without fear or favour by acting not only against the Umno and Perkasa members who assaulted the two reporters but also those who threatened me,” Lim said in his report.
He said that he still felt threatened by Umno and Perkasa members nearly two days after the event, adding that he was “shocked” that Barisan Nasional, especially Penang Umno and Gerakan (led by Musa Sheikh Fadzir and Teng Hock Nan respectively), continue to support the violent behaviour of Umno and Perkasa members.
“Instead of a public apology from BN for Umno and Perkasa’s violent behaviour, they are trying to pin the blame on me,” Lim said.
“When Umno and Gerakan do not even condemn violent attacks by Umno and Perkasa members on reporters covering the event, my personal safety is not guaranteed.”
Recounting the Sunday evening incident, Lim said he arrived at Padang Kota Lama to attend the Himpunan Hijau 2.0 event at 6.30pm.
“Before my arrival, Penang senior executive council member Chow Kon Yeow, who was already at the venue at 6pm, informed me by phone of the disruption by Umno and Perkasa members.”
Lim said he was informed that there were 100 Umno and Perkasa members supporting Lynas and behaving violently, while there were about 1,000 who were against the plant.
Immediate target
“They were violently and forcibly trying to disperse the crowd from the field. Fortunately the anti-Lynas people did not retaliate… they just sat down on the field,” he said.
He added that when he arrived, he was the immediate target of the Umno-Perkasa members.
“They used foul language and racial epithets such as ‘Cina Babi, Penang Cina bodoh, babi sokong Lim Guan Eng Ketua Menteri’.”
“They were waving their fists at me and threatened me with words like ‘you jaga’. If not for the members of public protecting me, I believe they would have attacked me.”
Lim said when he was delivering his speech on stage, Umno and Perkasa members, barely a metre away, repeatedly disrupted him.
When he was greeting the anti-Lynas group after his speech, there was a lot of pushing and shoving and the Umno-Perkasa mob continued with its abusive language and racial slurs.
Lim said he did not witness the attacks on the two Kwong Wah Jit Poh journalists, Chew Seng Tung and Lee Hong Chun.
He, however, expressed gratitude to Chew, whose actions had protected Lim. Chew received eight stitches on his injured finger while Lee had a bruise on the head.
Anti-Lynas crowd showed restraint
Lim said the Umno-Perkasa members continued their violent behaviour towards him as he returned to his car.
“Even after getting into my official car, they continued to hit my car, spit on it and refused to let my car leave the venue. The anti-Lynas crowd showed restraint and did not retaliate,” he said.
“This violent conduct does not represent Malay culture or the Malaysian spirit. I do not understand why they are so worked up in supporting Lynas, which is an Australian company.”
“Processing of rare earth has negative effects. How serious these effects are can be seen by the fact that Lynas cannot even get approval from its own Australian government to build the plant in Australia.
“If the Lynas goes wrong with the plant, then everyone will suffer – the Chinese will suffer, the Malays will suffer, the Indians will suffer, the Kadazans will suffer, the Ibans will suffer.”
Yesterday, Penang BN said it wanted police to investigate if the fracas was due to provocation by Lim.
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