Sunday, July 29, 2012

Azalina: Taiwanese activists inciting hatred


Pengerang MP Azalina Othman said the visit by Taiwanese activists to her constituency in to support of the local movement against a petrochemical complex there was intended to incite hatred among the people.

"I believe they are being sponsored. Even the ceramah that they gave was not intended to explain the project but was seditious in nature.

"They said the Petronas Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (Rapid) will impact the locals' health and shorten their life span. Who are they to decide life and death?" she was quoted as saying in a Berita Harian report today.

The project, in its early stages, consists of a refinery with a 150,000-barrel-a-day capacity and a naphtha cracker with an 800,000-tonne annual capacity.

The project was initially slated to be built in the Dacheng Wetlands in Taiwan's Changhua County, which is also the habitat of the critically endangered Taiwan pink dolphins.

It was rejected by Taiwan President Ma Ying-Jeou last April, after local residents and environmental impact assessment teams raised concerns that the complex would consume too much water and generate high levels of pollution in the ecologically sensitive area.

On July 14, it was reported that the Johor government had quietly inked an agreement with Taiwan's CPC Corp to construct the RM35 billion petrochemical complex in Pengerang, Johor despite local opposition.

The Taiwanese activist who had shared their experience campaigning against the plant back home with Pengerang residence were on Thursday hauled up by police for questioning.

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