A 50-strong group claiming to support the Lynas expert review panel sparked a physical confrontation with Indera Mahkota MCA Youth head David Choi in Kuantan this afternoon.

NONE The group arrived about 2pm at a hotel where nine UN atomic energy experts are holding public consultations with stakeholders.

They held up banners with messages like ‘IAEA we trust’ and ‘Don’t interfere in IAEA’, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

While denying that they are Umno members, they ranged themselves alongside Pahang exco member Mohamad Sahfri Ab Aziz and state assembly representatives Mohd Zaili Besar (Panching) and Norolazali Sulaiman (Guai).

Choi and three other MCA Youth members arrived later and were waiting for Kuantan MCA division chief Ti Lian Ker to submit a statement to the panel, when they were provoked by the protestors.

A scuffle broke out after a verbal exchange. Police separated them before the pro-IAEA group surrounded Choi.

Choi, who said someone had kicked him, claimed that the group was made up of Umno  members from Kuantan and Indera Mahkota.

The group also shouted at PKR’s Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh, when she turned up at 3pm.

They warned her not to take a signed petition into the 30-minute session with the panel. The document has more than 50,000 signatures against the Lynas Advanced Material Plant which is being built in the Gebeng industrial zone.

NONE However, Fuziah was able to meet with the panel after the Kuantan OCPD Mohd Jasmani Yusof managed to bring the situation under control.

Several light strike force personnel were then deployed to to the scene, but they stood watch until the crowd that had gathered, including members of the ‘Save Malaysia’ group, dispersed.

However, Ti made it clear that he had no links with Choi, claiming that “the Youth (branch) is not from my division”.

He told this to reporters after the session with the panel, adding that he didn’t know anything as he wasn’t at the scene.

‘We can’t even regulate litter’

Meanwhile, Fuziah lamented that although the panel will provide the best technical recommendation to the federal and Pahang state governments, she alleged that the authorities do not have the capacity to achieve those targets.

“Imagine that in Malaysia, we are not able to regulate the litter situation,” said the PKR vice-president at a press conference after the meeting with the panel.

She expected the outcome of the panel is to advise the federal, as well as the state government to admit that they’d made a mistake, and not to issue an operating licence to Lynas.

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