Several Australian NGOs have slammed Lynas Corporation Ltd's injunction application against the Save Malaysia Stop Lynas (SMSL) coalition as an attempt to gag freedom of speech in Malaysia.

Lynas filed a defamation suit against SMSL, which is opposing the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant in Gebeng, Kuantan, seeking general damages and aggravated damages, as well as an injunction restraining the group from further publishing defamatory articles on Lynas.

The application was to be heard in the High Court in Kuala Lumpur today, but was postponed to July 19.

NONE In a press statement today, Marcus Atkinson of the Anti-Nuclear Alliance of Western Australia (Anawa) criticised Lynas Corporation's action against SMSL as "un-Australian".

"It is totally un-Australian for Lynas to try to shut up Malaysian communities who are concerned about inheriting a polluted and radioactive future, losing their livelihood and clean living environment along the way!

"There is no way Lynas would be able to gag organisations in Australia from exercising their constitutional rights as citizen groups," Atkinson said in a press statement jointly released by Friends of the Earth Australia (FOE-Australia) and Anawa.

Concerned Malaysian communities are only exercising their right to voice their environmental concerns over the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (Lamp), a rare earths plant, the statement said.

'The kind of company it really is'

Lynas does not have the "social licence" to operate in Malaysia if it does not adequately address the concerns of the community and adhere to the "precautionary principle and free, prior and informed consent", said Jim Green of FOE-Australia.

Instead, its defamation suit against its critics "goes to show the kind of company it really is", said another Australian, Lee Tan, formerly of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Lynas has also filed a separate suit against online news portal Free Malaysia Today (FMT), seeking damages as well and an injunction against the site from publishing defamatory articles on the company.

In the suit, Lynas claimed that FMT had on March 6 published a defamatory article on its website while SMSL had published a defamatory article dated March 22 on its blog.

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