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Tag: Jaslyn Go

  • SDP Parents-CEC Members Call For Inquiry Into Benjamin Lim’s Case

    SDP Parents-CEC Members Call For Inquiry Into Benjamin Lim’s Case

    As parents of school-going children, we have been following Benjamin Lim’s case very closely. What happened to Benjamin is tragic. There are many answers the Ministry of Education owes to parents regarding the issue.

    First, shouldn’t schools be the safest place for our children to be in when they are away from home? Why did the school hand over one of its students to the police without his parents’ or school official’s presence?

    Second, schools have the responsibility to make sure children’s well-being are their top priority, even when faced with demands and pressure from the police.

    In Benjamin’s case, the school could have asked a school counsellor to accompany him to the police station. Even if the police did not allow anyone else to ride in the police vehicle with Benjamin, the school should have sent someone to drive separately to the police station and let Benjamin know that he was not alone.

    This is the whole problem with Singapore where most of us do not know our rights or question the limits of the authorities’ powers.

    Third, there was a school camp the following day which Benjamin was to attend. Students generally like attending these camps and there is no reason to believe that Benjamin was not looking forward to it. According to the family, however, the school called right after Benjamin left the police investigation to inform his mother that he will be excluded from the camp.

    If this account is true, why did the school decide to exclude Benjamin from the school camp and add to his already depressed state of mind?

    Already as a 14-year-old child facing five police officers without the presence of any familiar adult is very daunting. We will never know what went on in Benjamin’s mind when he decided to end his life that day, but his suicide is a wake up call to us.

    Let us make sure that no child ever goes through what Benjamin had to go through. This can only be achieved when an independent Commission of Inquiry is set up to determine exactly the events of his arrest and his treatment while he was under police custody. The current system does not afford adequate protection of minors.

    We owe it to Benjamin and his grieving family to seek justice for a son and brother lost.

    Jaslyn Go
    Jufri Salim
    Bryan Lim
    Mansura Sajahan
    Members
    Central Executive Committee
    Singapore Democratic Party

     

    Source: http://yoursdp.org

  • How Bukit Batok SMC Came To Have 3 Corners

    How Bukit Batok SMC Came To Have 3 Corners

    Out of nowhere, an independent candidate popped up to contest the Bukit Batok single-member constituency (SMC). His presence greatly upset some Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) supporters who were expecting a straight fight between their candidate Sadasivam Veriyah and the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) David Ong. This made Bukit Batok one of three SMCs that will see three-cornered fights this general election.

    Independent candidate Samir Salim Neji’s nomination attempt was first disqualified by the election returning officers at Keming Primary School which served as the nomination centre for Bukit Batok and three other constituencies. He came to the centre with three other persons, when the rules require that each nominee should present a proposer, a seconder, four assentors, and can also have “one other person” present, making a total of eight persons including the nominee/candidate. With only four persons in Samir Salim’s group, it didn’t look as if he met the criteria.

    pic_201509_02The proposer, seconder and assentors must all be registered voters in the respective constituency. The “one other person” is typically the election agent who attends to all supporting activities to aid the candidate in his or her campaign.

    Jaslyn Go is the SDP candidate for Yuhua

    I was in the nomination centre to observe all this as I had agreed to be one of the assentors for SDP’s candidate for Yuhua, Jaslyn Go. Keming Primary School also served as the nomination centre for Yuhua constituency.

    It took only a few minutes for the officials to turn Samir Salim away. A few SDP supporters went over to speak to him, and (I was later told), it seemed that his problem was that his other assentors were either overseas or failed to show up at the nomination centre. I also heard that he had been “in Singapore” for fifteen years.

    It should be noted — not that race is any issue here, but just to help understand the next part of the narrative — that all four persons in Samir Salim’s group were non-Chinese.  They appeared to be of South Asian origin.

    It wasn’t long before a flurry of conversations occurred among the PAP people in the nomination centre, and ten or fifteen minutes later, fresh documents were brought before the nomination centre officials. It turned out that the PAP had offered three persons living in Bukit Batok to be Samir Salim’s assentors, thus saving his candidacy from disqualification. At the close of the one-hour nomination window, this form was posted for public viewing, showing three Chinese names as his assentors, making the requisite four:

    pic_201509_05

    After 12:30pm, the accepted nominees were formally announced, and all candidates had a chance to make a short speech to the assembled crowd, which mostly comprised PAP supporters, with a sprinkling of red-shirted SDP supporters. Samir Salim spoke only in English. “No Tamil?” I whispered, to no one in particular. “He’s from Kerala,” came a reply from a stranger close by. How true that is I cannot say, but I’m sure we will know over the next few days from other sources.

    The SDP supporters were quite upset by this turn of events. Their knee-jerk reaction is understandable: they think the third candidate’s presence on the ballot will split the “opposition vote”. First of all, I think it’s a caricature to speak of a unified “opposition vote”, but secondly, I think it can very well be argued that giving voters a choice can’t be bad thing. Of course the counter-point can also be made that if one of the more established opposition parties were short of assentors, the PAP wouldn’t be lending them any, so it’s not as if we can read this gesture from the PAP to be as noble as it may first appear.

    * * * * *

    Here are a few other photos I took this morning:

    Sadasivam Veriyah of SDP (second from left) leading his supporters as they walk to the nomination centre

    Unions come out in support of a PAP candidate

    Singapore First Party organise their election materials at a coffee shop

     

    Source: https://yawningbread.wordpress.com

  • Jaslyn Go Drawn To SDP Over Education And Cost Of Living Issues

    Jaslyn Go Drawn To SDP Over Education And Cost Of Living Issues

    Mother-of-two Jaslyn Go began working during the school holidays from the age of 12, travelling from her home in Bukit Merah to a Paya Lebar garment factory to earn S$5 a day.

    She began working part-time from Secondary Two at McDonald’s, but juggling work and studies took its toll. She ventured into the working world after her O-Levels, doing sales and marketing mainly in the automobile industry.

    Ms Go said yesterday that she has also personally experienced challenges facing small and medium enterprises, running a construction company with her husband since 2004 that now hires 30 people and has an annual turnover of S$2 million.

    Her children are aged 12 and 10, and Ms Go said she feels strongly that education policies should encourage children to enjoy the process of learning.

    “Do we actually want our kids to grow up in this kind of stressful environment (today)?” she said.

    There is now also an overemphasis on paper qualifications, she feels. “In my generation, we are still able to make it without the paper chase. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the younger generations,” she wrote in her biography published on the SDP’s website.

    Her son will be taking his Primary School Leaving Examination this year and she is counting on her supportive husband to look after the children in her absence.

    Ms Go joined the Singapore Democratic Party in 2007, drawn by concerns over the cost of living, she said.

    “I felt strongly about it as a new mother. I was worried for my children, how they were going to … pay for a decent house and having to compete for places in schools, and (for) job opportunities,” she said.

    Jaslyn Go Hui Leng, 43

    Sales director of a construction company co-founded with her husband

    Fact file:

    • Has a certificate in early childhood education and a diploma in sales and marketing

    • Began working part-time from the age of 14 to help her family financially

    • Oversees sales, does training and develops profit targets at the construction company set up with her husband in 2004, that now has 30 staff and annual turnover of S$2 million

    She said:

    “Attitude in life surpasses academic qualifications … The twists that life throw at you can be turned into valuable lessons, they are experiences that books can’t teach you. They certainly brought me to where I am today.”

     

    Source: www.straitstimes.com