'We were assaulted, despite being guests at PM's event'

Kajang municipal councillor Lee Kee Hiong said today she and her entourage of some 20 former and current municipal councillors and residents, wearing green shirts, attended the groundbreaking ceremony for a new school in Bandar Sungai Long yesterday as guests.

"We were not  ‘samseng’ (hooligans) as accused by an Umno minister," she said.
Lee denied that the group was there to make trouble and had trespassed into BN’s ceremony, as claimed by Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Minister Noh Omar.

To prove her point, Lee showed a copy of BN’s invitation leaflet which she had received at her house in Sungai Long, which is very close to the function venue.

As such, it was her belief that she was also invited as a guest, and her attendance at the function was to share the joy with other residents at a long-awaited new Chinese school for Bandar Sungai Long.


“This is the SRJK(C) we had fought for over a period of 12 years. We have waited patiently, no way (were we going to) mess up the ceremony,” Lee (left in picture) said.

“We were assaulted by a group of people, and then Noh showed up to accuse us of making trouble... I was very surprised by this,” she told a press conference in Bandar Mahkota Cheras today.

“In fact, I regretted that he didn’t apologise for the incident. We were prevented from entering and were beaten up,” she said, adding that Noh, as Selangor BN deputy chief, should have invited them in.
 
‘Please write only BN supporters are welcome’

“Next time, please write (on the leaflets) that the function is only meant for BN supporters,” Lee said.

Also present at the press conference were several others who claimed to have been assaulted yesterday, including fellow Kajang municipal councillors Cheong Siow Foon and Ng Tien Chee; Chen Fandao, an aide to the Serdang MP; and a DAP member, Chan Huan Guan.
  
Cheong (right in picture), said his choice to dress in green was a sign of a silent protest.

He said his intention was to show the prime minister (Najib Abdul Razak) that the rakyat opposed the Lynas rare earth plant in Gebeng, Kuantan.

Cheong also said that the man who assaulted him had also tried to snatch his cellphone, and he fought back.

“I use the cellphone to store photos of my little daughter, from the day she was born until she was 15 months old. I don’t have other copies,” he said.

“I am very angry ....they are not only samseng, but robbers, too. All this happened while the police were around,” he added.

However, Chan (left in picture) wasn’t so lucky. He claimed that his gold necklace, with a Buddha relic pendant, which was a gift from his mother 20 years ago, was snatched away during the chaos.

Chan estimated that the necklace was worth about RM5,000.