http://www.malaysiakini.com/frame/eNoNwlEKgDAIANAb6Qj66TIiw6FBU3LM69fj6VpxIVYV3DKGu0H3B/ntalsSj9ZO/M+kElLeQkxpEBofd58VCA==
I feel so sad when i read the news about the boy. i don't think the boy guilty, he just try his best to give his family a better life. he jailed because he can't effort to pay the fined rite? what if this thing happen to a 'rich family'? just a piece of cake for rich family? they can effort to pay the fined but for a poor guy that worked so hard to help his family what is the point to come out fine people $$? to scare 'not so rich' family? Posted by: Pv_Ice at May 11, 2005 12:44 PM If the decision to sent him to jail is not to punish him then why sent him there? Why not sent those whom they want to punish? Another thing, was the prosecution so intent on prosecution him as an example that they completely ignore his situation? What about the judge, [ DELETED BY JEFF OOI - you may be persecuted for contempt of court ] Posted by: twotablet at May 11, 2005 12:46 PM I wanted to cry when I read the story in the newspaper today. Like Nightcaller, if you were to start ad hoc help this boy drive, let me have the account nos. The boy left school after Form 2 to help his mother and to make sure his siblings could continue going to school. May God bless this boy and his family. Posted by: ami at May 11, 2005 12:46 PM How many people understand why the MB bailed him out? The answer is because otherwise it would involve the challenge in constitutional rights and the NS program to rectify the situation. Bolehland really boleh lah. Posted by: Bigjoe at May 11, 2005 12:54 PM With all due respect, The root of the problem in the first place is organising a stupid camp in the jungle for no bloody purpose, and then forcing the youth of Malaysia to get together, where invariably, one rotten apple screws up the whole barrel. I know that it would be nice to pay up for the poor guy, but this does not solve the problem. Life is not fair, and he should take his lumps - callous as that may sound. What about the other cases which do not make the news? I am sure that plenty of other cases go unreported. Any finally, why are the politicians helping someone to get out of jail after he has broken the law? I know circumstances are mitigating, but it still does not change the fact that he broke the law. Therefore, the law is at issue here, and the way to change it is to either vote someone in who will change it, or to pressure the existing lawmakers via petitions or letters to repeal such a law. As far as I am concerned: forcing anybody to do what they do not want to do is NOT FAIR! PS: How come I have yet to see any newspaper reports on the children of politicians in those 'concentration' camps? I thought leadership is by example? Posted by: the65thsquare at May 11, 2005 12:57 PM This boy has real character, doesn't need the NS to make him a better person. He placed higher priority on helping his family to earn a living. He doesn't believe in wearing new uniform, mixing with other peers who may be smoking and has even less direction than him. His important goal is to earn a few dollars to allow his 2 younger brothers and his single mother decent meals and proper schooling. For that he is being sent to jail. This is Najib's mess. When someone is down on his luck, punish him further. Is this Cemerlang, Gemilang and Terbilang?? Posted by: Quest at May 11, 2005 12:59 PM I think the boy has gone thru enough hardship that he doesn't need Khidmat Negara. Khidmat Negara would seem like a vacation after what he has gone thru for years. The fact the he works so that he can supplement his mother's income is enough to prove his good character. Unlike so many of his peers who prefer to lepak after their SPM rather than helping their parents around the house. Posted by: serdangmom at May 11, 2005 01:04 PM I bet this boy can't help but to shed a tear when having nice food during the camp when his family at home struggling to get a decent food. I wonder how did the management pick the name coz this boy has dropped put from school years ago. why did my sister who completed till form 5 was not selected? and so many other teens out there. apa sistem yang mereka pakai? Perlis is such a small state and yet ada lagi menteri, wakil rakyat, pegawai kebajikan, pegawai pendidikan, ketua kampung did not do anything to help this family. why was he allowed to drop out of school when there's plenty of fund are able to help him? sia-sia ada KLCC and Sepang F1 kalau masih ada yang berhenti sekolah kerana kemiskinan..... :( Posted by: sherrina at May 11, 2005 01:15 PM shame on you all bn voters!! you put them at highest place and then crying when they do all this stupid things. Posted by: rosman at May 11, 2005 01:34 PM Spot on sherrina. How can we allow our youth to dropout from school due to poverty? And yet we can spend millions for things like new lamp posts to replace the perfectly function old lamp posts. Posted by: Harry at May 11, 2005 01:37 PM Thanks jeff for the update. I think there are more 'Ahmad Harizal' out there whom work for the family and not turn up in the NS programme. Either the govt take this case as trial to see the people feedback or to show that they are serious about NS. I think Ahmad Harizal is very patriotic indeed. He shows towards family first. Now, what will happen to him when he will undergo the 3 month training. The family will have to live with rm150 for 3 month. If he's lucky, after NS he will continue his job. What if not? what if the job taken by somebody? Would the MB care again? I doubt that. Posted by: mahaza at May 11, 2005 01:47 PM You all should see the picture of Ahmad Harizal being led away in handcuffs in today's edition of the Sun. Being handcuffed like some common criminal, and yet all he did was to try and help his mother make ends meet. The system failed Ahmad Harizal, just as it failed so many people in the past. However, it is the poor and the downtrodden who are failed the most by the system, and we need to change the system. People like Ahmad Shahidan, and the DPP are part of the system, and they need to be removed. Posted by: WilliamL at May 11, 2005 01:49 PM Malaysia - The Joker maker... They caught the poor boy and showed all the people that, this is the end of a boy who is poor and have to stop schoolling at form 2 and was caught with the possibility that he doesn't have a good channel to the information outside the world. (RM150 + RM30 per month to get a comp or internet?) As i said previously, Northern Malaysia is still quite a neglected territory, there's no surprise why PAS could win them easily last time... Posted by: Vertebrato at May 11, 2005 02:04 PM the rich fellas kids also got go camp mah. their camps outing different wan. could be in UK this year. If they r serious in prosecuting and making others toe the line, they shld not hv taken in this poor boy. show us that u can bring in rich fellas' kids and we will respect u MSIA! bullying one small poor boy and sending out a msg to the rest makes me wanna puke! Or probably this is one way for the MB to shine and show his soft side in paying for the fine. could this hv been a charade? so what now? he deserves a public apology for showing him being handcuffed for some offence he might not hv understood completely. TNS again! Posted by: groo at May 11, 2005 02:28 PM We must remember who the prosecution team members are. http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/5/11/nation/10920287&sec=nation Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail, when contacted, said if there was any truth to Ahmaf Hafizal’s story, he would apply for a revision of the sentence. “We have accepted appeals from numerous NS dodgers who proved that they missed the programme because they needed to support their families or had sick parents to look after. “We did not prosecute them,” said Gani when told of the youth’s predicament. Deputy public prosecutor Norfiza Mohamad Noordin urged the magistrate to pass a sentence that would serve to remind other teenagers to be responsible when called up for NS. - the Star Q1. Excuse me, but shouldn't the prosecution do their homework before embarassing themselves, Najib and the entire country with this silly escapade? There is a Chinese saying that goes, killing the chicken to scare the monkey. That's exactly what happened here, the kid was being victimised and made a convinient example to others. Note that the deputy public prosecutor urged for a sentence? There wouldn't have been a need for a revision of sentence if the AG and his deputy public prosecutor did their proper homework before hauling the kid to court, and the judge (can't blame her though) should have been more thorough and why wasn't the poor kid even represented in court at all? I need some input from lawyers here. Was the kid told to waive his right to an attorney? Why wasn't any legal counsel offered? Paying for his fines or taking his place in jail is not the solution. The fact is whether this kid could have been exempted from NS. Like the Attorney General said, if the kid's predicament is true, and the facts do check out and the media wasn't lying through its teeth and the mother and children are really poor and that's really their house - that means that the deputy public prosecutor is INEPT. End of story. My advice for those kids who DID skip the NS and ignored the summons? Get yourself a good lawyer. If you can get a lawyer to challenge the legality of the Malaysian Youth Service Bill 2003, you have just helped generations of your peers and saved the country lots of money. If not, all you have to do is RM3000 and six months imprisonment. That's the maximum penalty. I am not telling our youth to break the law. On the contrary, I think they should go and learn what they can from their experience. Afterall, I am aware that if I am found to incite the kids not to undergo training, it is an offence that carries the maximum penalty of RM 10,000 fine and/or two years' jail (see link). http://www.suaram.org/press_release/pr20030618.htm Apparently, the Bill has basically barred any disagreements to its inception. Posted by: Chez1978 at May 11, 2005 02:34 PM I hope the situation now is not a LPPL (Lan Pa Pa Lan) case. NS is good for us! But the system adminstrations going about it is the problem. If they vet, or check or the boy make a "rayuan" to delay, skip postpone whatever with these reasons and somebody at the other end do their job, it wouldn't gone until court case. They should take a case, like some rich/Datuk kid,spoilt brat type, or those suburban,middle class hardcore kids who don't give a fuck what NS about with stupid/unreasonable excuses. Then maybe we can sympathise with the NS/gov side. This thing just makes them look bad. Stupid....plain stupid. Or some hidden agenda somewhere.... Posted by: mlkview at May 11, 2005 02:44 PM Poor fella...the megistrate too [ DELETED BY JEFF OOI - Liable to be found in contempt of court ] RM600 may be chicken feed for her but it requires 20 working days for Ahmad Harizal to raise the money. After the fine or jail he would still not be relieved of his duty to undergo NS training. What is this...then he will be fined or jailed again for not attending the training. Which is the priority now? NS training or feeding his family. For god sake just drop his name and get somebody else to go. Can't she think properly as a human being. Posted by: PIRANHA at May 11, 2005 02:53 PM A case of blind justice. The irony of it is that they tried to make him look bad - even had his picture (handcuffs and all)in the papers. But he is now a hero - A shining example of filial respect and sibiling love. He should be sent immediately to the nearest Nat. Service Camp BUT as a PAID instructor, motivator, teacher, guide and role model. Think of the things he could teach the other kids and the adults. The system failed him and his family, but he did not. Agree with sherrina, where were all theose people before he dropped out of school ? Just watch, now everyone will jump on the bandwagon and show they are trying to do something - complete with press coverage and the pontificating. Posted by: PeterP at May 11, 2005 02:54 PM Just a reminder for everyone, as Jeffooi suggest, you can't discuss the judgement out of court otherwise you are liable to charge contempt of court. But there is no harm if you discuss Monkeyland(TM) Kangaroo court judgement ;). Posted by: moo_t at May 11, 2005 03:28 PM Agreed with all the comments made here. Ahmad Hafizal Ahmad Fauzi got his priorities right. I am proud of him. This mess is created due to the "one size fits all" policy of the Govt. Usually associated with big media launch and plenty of speeches by politicians and implemented with insufficient time for public input and feedback on implementation details. Typically, as other policies had been dished out by our Ministers, it shows lack of sensitivity to special and differential concerns of the rakyat in general (except, of course, for the rich and the influential) and we get peole like Ahmad Hafizal Ahmad Fauzi caught in a MORAL dilemma. It is an indictment of the way our bureaucrats put in place policies that affect the rakyat directly -IE cold and lack of indepth study and analysis. One other point: Jeff mentioned that a representative of the MB paid off the fine. As a matter of principle and to ensure govt policy consistency, the fine should not be from the State Govt. but rather from private funds, or NGO sources. Having said that, I think the average Malaysian on the street would have paid that fine without blinking an eye. I would personally. There are many others who share the same fate as Ahmad Hafizal Ahmad Fauzi. My heart goes out for him and his family. To be treated like a criminal is the cruelest cut of all Posted by: Frank&Honest at May 11, 2005 03:36 PM We indeed have a situation - now that a precedent's created to spring him free, what will happen to those after him who're hauled up? where does one draw the line on how meritorious is the condition of the candidate to do so? what will be the message given to other AWOLs and potential AWOLs? Yet i am glad he's free and i hope he and his family can be helped in more ways so that they will have some breathing space to get up. I think it is the only decent thing this country can and must do to make amends for the way he has been apprehended and displayed, charged and jailed. My concerns here are: one, when they thought of going after the errants, were they thinking all youths are living easy lives? if yes, they better all sit down and think again whether that sort of perception is actually harming our youths' development, for the cavalier manner by which youth development programs have been rolled out. two, what is the govt going to do after this with the rest, now that a precedent is set which is not going to be that easy to erase? let go and NS becomes a voluntary service with probably tapering interest, or, continue to haul them up and one shouldn't be surprised there will be more of such cases to come. The NS itself has also been causing administrative headaches for the education sector, including both planners and students who enter late. In the light of this event, it should be reviewed to see if there are other ways to spend money to achieve its objectives, with some to spare for poor youths ekeing a miserable living in extremely difficult conditions, a reality national planners are apt at missing in their chase of the glorious and the puffinated. For Harizal, the state must help alleviate his family's living conditions. That's the least we can do. Posted by: Neil at May 11, 2005 04:48 PM lesson learned? we must put the NS ahead of family problem and other thing? even your family member suffering? just forget about it for 3 months and happily go holiday with other in the camp for 3 months and no need to worry about the food because the government will provide for 'him' then after 3 months what happen? maybe his other family member will always be with him in the heaven Posted by: Pv_Ice at May 11, 2005 04:56 PM One simple way to do away with the 3-month camp is to start NS week-ends for all students in the larger towns where schools can be used for overnight stays. Suppose we do this from Sec 3; with modules conducted only once a month until they leave school. This way, the students have a longer period to mix around and get to know one another. For the last year of school, say Tingkat 5 perhaps there could be a 2-week camp at the end of the school term. All those who leave school are no longer required to attend. Such a scheme will cover perhaps 90% of the youth and will not create such a situation like what happened to the poor chappie. No need to rent expensive camp-sites and solve major logistics problems and would be a more cost effective way to instill patriotism among young Malaysians. Posted by: hjangus at May 11, 2005 05:11 PM I just wonder what Najib is going to do next with the NS after this fiasco? The options are many for him to take... and each would require a total review of the NS approach. If I remember right, the NS was started based on a perception that our youth are becoming more and more (to paraphrase and in my own words) - "less patriotic", -"no concern for the wellbeing of the nation", -"no respect for elders and political leaders", - "gravitating to drugs, alcohol and nightclubs", - "ponting from school or wasting their time in the malls," -" getting involved into small crimes," -" lazing in the parks and gardens" and -"wasting petrol and diesel on SUVs around the cities". That may be true for some youth in the cities like in KL, especially youths of middle and upper middle class, and those of the rich and influential who had the time on their hands. Yet, youths like Ahmad Harizal Ahmad Fauzie and many others don't fit that mold, and many more like him are fighting their way out of severe poverty which the glorious NEP ( that wealth building platform for the creation of rich umnoputras in the last 30 years) had left them so far behind. Posted by: Frank&Honest at May 11, 2005 05:33 PM The way the NS was promoted, it was going to be the end all, solve all problems. Guess now that the NS has been consolidated with nice contracts handed out, it is time to move to other deals like using our gold reserves. Let's face it....we do have some very creative piratisation operators in Malaysia after many years of fine-tuning. Posted by: hjangus at May 11, 2005 05:46 PM 30 postings. I am late Make sense to help the family pay the 600. BUT I think looking at a larger issue would be: let the boy goes to the training. It is good for him I am sure to have contact with people outside his padi field. THEN help the family by paying the 30 ringgit he is suppose to make per month. What is 100 ringgits to most people especially wealthy politicians? This way, he is shown on records he fulfils his responsibilities of serving his country, and to deter others from evading PKN. Cindy Posted by: cindy at May 11, 2005 06:54 PM there is always an exception to a general rule and this scenario fits into of them. but then again, gomen style of doing things are soo rigid, semua kena dpt kelulusan bertulis dari kementerian, no sense of empowernment at all. Posted by: polis at May 11, 2005 07:00 PM The handling of this thing just reminds me that Malaysia perhaps maybe just a modern Sultanate. Its not about laws and systems but about aristocratic actions and power. They determine the final outcome and not laws, systems and proceses. Our PM must realize that he is a Sultan although an elected one. There is no high qualtiy administrative structure and system for him to count on. He has never seen what a proper one given his education and training. In fact few politician in our country really know what its all about. Those that have any inkling are long gone dead. The PM should take a leave of absent and take a course at Harvard Kennedy School or Cambridge Public Policy department. __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater? Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good! http://us.click.yahoo.com/WwRTUD/SOnJAA/i1hLAA/JcWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Alternatif-Net : A Discussion Forum Focusing on Issues Related to Justice Forum Perbincangan Maya Yang Fokus Kepada Isu Keadilan Disclaimer: Messages sent do not represent the stand of the Barisan Alternatif (BA) unless otherwise stated Complaint : Send to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Sub : Send blank e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsub : Send blank e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! 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