Jufri: "I am glad to serve time for a cause I believe in."

• Poh Ah Pak

  28 Feb 09, 12:15

  Jufri: I'm glad to serve time for the cause

  Friday, 27 February 2009

  Singapore Democrats
  
  When the trial for the Tak Boleh Tahan 18 resumed yesterday, Mr Jufri Salim pleaded guilty to the two charges and was fined a total of $1,200. The young protester said that he could not get more time off from work and the trial looks set to drag on for a while yet.
  
  But Mr Jufri refused to pay the fine because he had done no wrong, adding "I am glad to serve time for a cause I believe in." He will serve an eight-day jail term in default beginning tomorrow. The SDP salutes a courageous and true Singaporean.

  

  Jufri Salim with wife Surayah and their 3 kids

  
  Eighteen activists are charged with participating in a protest outside Parliament House on 15 Mar 08. They had raised the matter of rising costs of living in Singapore and how it was affecting the poor.
  
  Young Jufri seemed a little nervous at the prospect of going to jail. Everybody does. But he did not allow that fear to overcome his principle of yielding to an unjust law. Wearing his Tak Boleh Tahan t-shirt, he read out the following statement in court:
  
  
  
  

   

  Your Honour,
  
  I wish to make this statement:
  
  It is with a heavy heart that I have to plead guilty. I am doing it because of work commitments and the fact that I have 3 kids and a wife to provide for.
  
  I am making it clear that I did no wrong. In fact what I did with the 17 others who exercised our constitutional rights on 15th March 08 is very noble and no one can take those rights away from us, citizens of Singapore. We stood up for Singapore and our fellow Singaporeans. The only regret is that I am unable to continue to fight this case.
  
  And because I have done no wrong and committed no crime, I will not pay the fine although money has been raised. I am glad to serve time for a cause I believe in.
  
  I hope that my fellow citizens will wake up one day to the fact that we have been oppressed for too long. Join us in our call for freedom and democracy in Singapore.
  
  Jufri Salim

  
  Mr Jufri will report to Subordinate Court No 26 at 9:30am tomorrow to begin his sentence. In the meantime his wife, Ms Suraya, continues on with the trial. Read also A portrait of love, honour and courage

  
  

  http://www.yoursdp.org/index.php/news/singapore/

   

• Poh Ah Pak

  28 Feb 09, 12:16

  stevewu77  -     Fri, 27 Feb 2009 7:03 pm

  Dear Jufri, I salute you. Indeed, you did no wrong. It is the government which failed you. Please take comfort that you have a lot of supporters in the rest of Singapore. The fight will go on. Take care.

  Ted  -     Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:23 pm Dear Jufri, We Singaporeans salute you, history will tell. LKY & his cronies will sink in our history book for centuries to come. Thank you for your sacrifice. My heart is with you.

  alanp  -     Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:12 pm Kudos to you, Jufri!

  exSINgaPOORean  -  Double Standard    Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:56 pm The SDP had said and shown that if the CASE, another running dog organization can do the same act in the same place and not be arrested then why these 16 are charged and now got to go to jail for ding the SAME thing. Isn't it double standard? If this is not KANGAROO court then it must be RUNNING DOG court.

  exSINgaPOORean  -  Dignity    Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:27 am Salim has found back his DIGNITY which Singaporeans have been systematically robbed off by the PAP. "We only know the worth of a tea bag when it is in hot water" and now we know the Salim brand of tea is one of the best. By his example, more young adults will get the courage. I bet, if SDP is org. another such much, more people will turn up. Publish them well. SDP should get the old folks to join them and bring alng more children. Bring fresh flowers to hand them to the policemen policewomen. I pray that this time around, 16X10=160 people from all walks of life will turn up for the March from ParLEEment.

  Seelan Palay  -     Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:33 am Jufri Salim - a caring father, a patriotic Singaporean & my trustworthy friend. We are the future LKY, the days of your dictatorial regime are over.

  jeffgoh  -     Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:40 am As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever:...Clarence Darrow I salute you and your family Jufri.

  Tan Tai Wei  -     Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:19 am

  Our courts and judges have been reduced to triviality these days, with magnificently paid prosecutors and judges hearing, at great financial cost to the nation, little things like five persons caught with some placards, or wearing tea-shirts, etc., etc. This is the consequence of LKY's punitive over-legislating. To forestall any "people power" against his rule, he has come down with a vengeance, and made even minute laws, like that redefining "assembly" to mean even five persons meeting together, and making that illegal. The result, however, has been to obligate our austere, million-dollar paid juduciary, and all the austere persons manning it, up to the austere Law Minister himself, and Parliament, to have to attend to "boys scouts" type activities held along "five foot ways", committing harmless youngsters such as Jufri to "imprisonment" within the austere walls of our imposing prisons. SDP seems to be successfully showing up how trivial and unnecessary those laws are, by deliberately forcing the state to apply them. The power of the state is abused when laws are made beyond that really needed for order and safety. To over-legislate is not to be asserting rightful authority, but being authoritarian and, thus, dictatorial.

• AndrewPKYap

  28 Feb 09, 12:29

  
  

  Wow, there are real life heros among us.

   

  Compare these heros to the public money grabbing dogs and their senile, cursed master with a zombie wife and an anus cancer patient son, setting up a system to persecute them!

   

   

   

• Poh Ah Pak

  28 Feb 09, 12:31

  Not all people are willing to be the running dogs of PAP.

  There are Singaporeans who dare to stand up against the PAP and not be their dog.

  This type of people I respect.