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A military dictatorship could seize control of the Maldives if the country’s media do not become neutral and a “good constitution” is not installed warned former leader of the Human Rights Commission, Ahmed Mujthaba, on Saturday.

In a speech given at an Open Society meeting in Bandos Island Resort, Mujthaba urged politicians to create an appropriate constitution as soon as possible.

He said this was important due to the fact that it will take “many years” for democracy and a respect for human rights to become part of Maldivian culture even after the constitution’s completion.

Mujthaba pointed out that the Maldives had never been a democracy and that presently, the country was at a delicate crossroads where a wrong turn could end up throwing the entire democratisation process in chaos.

“Do we want the country to move back into a subsistence economy?” Mujthaba asked listeners. “Do we want a strong man to emerge to finally control the situation and install a military dictatorship or an Iranian style theocracy or a Saudi type kingdom? If the answer is no, the state radio and TV must become liberal and neutral in reporting news and facilitate public debate on various issues.”

In addition to a neutral media Mujthaba also said that, “the politicians in power must stop trying to cling onto the power and those in the opposition must stop trying to take power. The two must work together to ensure a better life for future generations through a good Constitution.”

According to Mujthaba the present constitution, which took 17 years to construct, is no better than the one that came before it as government regulations and practices and acts of Majlis can still be changed “whimsically”.

“I learnt more about what was wrong with the country that I was born in and I call home in the one year and nine months that I was in the Commission than I did my entire life,” Mujthaba added.

He went on to say that he had been specifically disturbed over the fact that the Human Rights Commission received media coverage only when one of its members resigned on grounds that the Commission was not functioning in accordance with the Constitution and Islamic Sharia.

“The state media gave no assistance in the dissemination of information on human rights,” said Mujthaba.

He said that for the sake of the entire country the media need to start focusing on serious issues, such as human rights abuses, and need to report them objectively.

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The Minister of Gender and Family, Aishath Mohamed Didi, faced tough criticism on Friday over Maldives’ ban on the election of women to the presidency and vice-presidency

She described the prohibition as “odd” and “an anachronism” as she presented reports to the UN General Assembly’s Committee in New York on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

One expert said Luxembourg was the only other country with such a prohibition, but it was a monarchy where the Head of State, regardless of gender, had little political power, whereas the opposite was true of the Maldives President. The ban merely reinforced gender stereotypes and justified discrimination on the basis of gender.

Echoing that sentiment, another expert noted that Islamic countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh had elected female leaders, pointing out that neither Sharia nor the Koran prohibited women from holding political office. The Maldives’ next country report should show that the country’s reservations regarding political and public life, as well as marriage and family life, had been lifted.

The Minister said the government was considering the withdrawal of the reservations and had proposed to remove the constitutional provision barring women from holding the country’s highest political office. Committee members were invited to discuss the matter with Maldives legislators and to push for those changes before the nation’s Parliament.

Other questions discussed today focused on why women could not become judges, and the level at which debate was taking place to change that; the legal implications of gender discrimination in the absence of a women’s rights law; and the changing mandate of the high-level Gender Equality Council.

She said there was a provision for a quota permitting the President to appoint eight parliamentarians, including four women and four men, adding that she had advocated for the quota as a necessary temporary measure but had met resistance, with political factions claiming that women were not fit to hold the presidency, ministerial or parliamentary positions. Others claimed that quotas discriminated against men.

The Minister said the question of eliminating the gender barrier in the judiciary was under consideration by ministers and judges. Debate was also ongoing at the community level and in the media, according to another delegate. The Justice Minister had announced the Government’s intention to appoint female judges under the mandate of the Judicial Service Commission.

However, the Minister acknowledged that judges and magistrates had not been sensitised to gender issues, partly because their heavy case loads made it difficult for them to participate in programmes run by the Ministry of Gender and Family. New training starting in

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Ahmed Abbas, the prominent political cartoonist and designer of Maldivian banknotes, was brought to court from Maafushi jail this morning for a case surrounding a quote he gave to Minivan Daily newspaper.

His court appointment, which was scheduled for 9:30am at the High Court in Male’, was postponed for a week after Abbas was unable to bring a lawyer. He was only informed of the court appointment in the middle of the night, and was given no means to contact his lawyer.

Abbas, who has been imprisoned since early November, was quoted in the newspaper on August 2, 2005, saying: “What we should do to those in the Star Force [police] who beat us, is to seek them out individually and for us to act in such a manner that makes them feel that beatings result in pain, otherwise they will not be subdued.”

Abbas, who has been labelled as a “prisoner of conscience” by human rights NGO, Amnesty International, sensationally sought refuge in the UN building in the capital Male’ on November 2 after being sentenced in absentia to 6 months imprisonment by the Government for inciting violence against police. The UN was unable to offer him sanctuary.

Since then, his daughter Elena Ahmed Abbas (Dhombee), delivered a letter to the UN Resident Coordinator in the Maldives, Patrice Coeur-Bizot, asking for his “swift intervention” to help secure her father’s release. That was in late November 2006, but her father remains in jail.

The government has recently fallen back into its habit of bullying the independent media after a relatively quiet period. Recently Minivan Daily’s Deputy-Editor, Nazim Sattar, was summoned to court for a case about the same article. Nazim is accused of having written the article and is being tried for “disobedience to order.”

Phillip Wellman, a journalist with this website, has also been deported and blacklisted for a period of two years. The government says he does not have permission to be in the country after a previous expulsion. Wellman was thrown out of the country in early November last year after being arrested in Thinadhoo, Ghaafu Daalu Atoll, while covering a planned opposition protest on the island.

Mohamed Yooshau, Thinadhoo correspondent for Minivan Daily was also recently given a sentence of 4 months’ banishment to a remote island after being convicted of “disobedience to order”. The sentence was suspended for three years.

The charges came after he visited the Thinadhoo Island Office to ask the Island Chief why two government employees, Shaheed Mohamed and Ibrahim Ahmed, also members of the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party, had been fired.

All of the cases are targeted at the Minivan organisation, which runs Dhivehi language newspaper and website, Minivan Daily, this English language website, and Minivan Radio – whose signal is scrambled in Male’ and operates despite a government ban on private broadcasting.

The Maldives currently ranks 144th in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, slightly lower than Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but higher than Russia and Iraq.

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Government and NGO bureaucrats have taken a step closer to forming a Red Crescent Society for the Maldives.

Nominees from civil society, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the government met at the Ministry of Health on Thursday for the first meeting of a new planning group to help form the local aid organisation.

The group will build on work done over the past 16 months by volunteers. The meeting comes after another committee issued its recommendations after the first phase of its work in Male’ last November.

The formation of a Maldives Red Crescent has been subject to some controversy. Negotiation has taken more than a year and the organisation is not yet in operation.

There have also been allegations of government meddling to limit the influence of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) within the organisation.

The IFRC insists there is a due process to follow and that politics will have no place in the new organisation. It says the time taken to form the group is not unusual, and it takes up to two or three years in some countries.

They say they are working hard to ensure the Red Crescent’s personnel respect their seven principles; humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, universality.

The new planning group will now work to achieve four tasks. Firstly, to complete the holding of elections for delegates from Male to a MRC General Assembly (all other atolls have selected representatives) Secondly, to seek approval from the Geneva-based joint commission for the statues governing the MRC. Thirdly, to finalise arrangements for the issuing of a Presidential decree which would official bring the MRC into being. And finally, to hold the national General Assembly of the MRC

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Below is a copy of an email Minivan News sent to Director of DiameriCENAPS, Dr. Shafiu on January 14.

DiameriCENAPS is the company chosen by the National Narcotics Control Board (NNCB), which is headed by Dr. Abdulla Waheed, to provide drug rehabilitation services in the Maldives. According to state newspaper Haveeru it will charge Rf. 15 000 per month for each client.

The company is run and owned by three directors – Mr. Terence T. Gorski, and American addiction guru and two Maldivians, Dr. Mohamed Shafiu and tourism mogul Mohamed Fahmi.

We wrote to Dr. Shafiu with questions from a concerned reader. After more than a week, we have not received a response, so we are making the email public in the hope DiameriCENAPS will respond. We also called Mohamed Fahmi to arrange a visit to the Himmafushi rehab centre, as Dr. Shafiu suggested. Fahmi refused to allow us to visit and told us: “There is nothing we want to share with the public at this moment.”

It is still not clear if 120 jobs at the Rehab Centre are secure, and what has happened to those government employees.

Letter below:

Dear Dr. Shafiu,

We have had an email from a reader asking some specific questions about your company.

I feel it is important that Minivan News put these questions to you, in order that your company may be as transparent and accountable as possible.

I hope you may be able to answer the questions for our readers. If not, please can you refer us to the appropriate government representative. Many thanks in advance.

The questions we have received are:

“What is the basis on which such an initiative is justified in operating for
profit in Maldives?

How many other companies were considered before this particular one got the contract?

What were the criteria for the choice? Who made these choices? How transparent were these processes?

What is it about this model that makes it the right one for Maldives? Who did this research?

How will the effectiveness of this program be monitored and when? Who is responsible for this monitoring and how are they related to the program?

Also, if government enforces some convicts to undergo the 90 day schedule, what is the basis on which people will be selected? Surely there must be some legal issues that need to be resolved for such a stance. Has this been done elsewhere?

I would also like to know how the religious aspect is included in a model based on science? In many ways the latter tends to be the basis on which the selection of this model is validated. In many ways, the basic tenets of science tend to negate any religious beliefs. Science is an enterprise that relies on a rationality that does not entertain any Creator. I am very interested to see how this is made possible within an already established, registered “model”. Does it allow for such flexibility? And if so how?”

Kind Regards,

Minivan News on behalf of a reader who wants to remain anonymous

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Residents of Addu are scandalised after hip-hop dance classes were given to young people in Addu Atoll.

Locals have called for the “bodu beru” and hip-hop dance classes organised by the National Centre for Arts to stop, saying the dances are not religiously acceptable. The classes, which teach people how to hip-hop dance and play musical instruments, began on January 14 and have received mixed reviews from residents.

During the inauguration ceremony of the classes at Muhibbudeen School hall, many residents protested outside, chanting ‘Allah Akbar’- God is great and telling participants they were going to hell.

“Residents were protesting, saying that they cannot carry out their classes there. But the President of the Feydhoo Women’s Committee came out and said that if the dancers were going to go to hell, kindly leave them to go to hell,” said an eyewitness, who asked to remain anonymous.

Some then carried on protests outside classes held at the S. Maradhoo/Feydhoo vocational centre, holding banners saying such activities should be stopped.

“We do not mind if they carry out their fun and games at some other place, like in one of the atoll’s uninhabited islands. We provided the funds to build the vocational centre from our own pockets so it belongs to the residents of the island,” said a resident who did not want to disclose his name.

Some protesters claimed women participants of the “bodu beru” class were told to wear outfits that were “as tight and short as possible.” Some buruqa clad women were also asked to wear shorts under the same guidance, protesters said.

Members of the NCA team did not attend the centre due to the protests. Demonstrators were eventually sent home after police intervened.

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Phillip Wellman, a journalist for this website, has been forced to leave the country and has been blacklisted for two years. He joins Minivan News Managing Editor, Paul Roberts, on the government’s blacklist for foreign journalists.

The Maldivian Government’s move to deport Wellman came just five days after he returned to the Maldives from a previous expulsion. He will now be unable to return to the country until 2009.

He was originally expelled on November 3, 2006 along with a freelance photographer working for Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “They will be welcome in the Maldives in two weeks’ time,” said Chief Government Spokesman, Mohamed Hussein Shareef in November.

Wellman then returned on January 15, but after only two days in the country he was summoned to see immigration officials and was given 48 hours to leave the country.

The government first said they would need three days to make a decision on whether Wellman was allowed back into the country. But when he arrived at Male’ airport, he was informed he would not be able to return for two years.

At that point, imigration officials asked him to sign a document. They gave him no time to read it, and told him to hurry in order not to miss his flight. Wellman refused to sign the document until he knew what it said. At that point he was threatened with “detention.”

Wellman eventually missed the flight and left on the next one available. Not one immigration official knew exactly why Wellman was being deported. The only reason they could cite was that he did not have the proper authorisation to enter the country. He entered the country on a tourist visa, awaiting the renewal of his work permit from the Employment Ministry.

He says he believes the decision to throw him out has come directly from the President, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, via Immigration Controller, Ibrahim Shafiu, who he describes as Gayoom’s “right hand man”.

Shafiu, who is also a DRP Special Majlis member appointed by the President, said Wellman does not have “permission” to be in the country. Minivan News contacted the government before his arrival to inform them of his intention to return and received no objection to the proposal.

Wellman, an American citizen, was informed of his deportation the day after a U.S. delegation, including Ambassador to the Maldives, Robert O. Blake, left the country.

Managing Editor of this website, Paul Roberts, gave this response to the news: “Time and again the Government of Maldives displays its contempt towards press freedom. In light of Phillip’s deportation, it is difficult to see the reform process as much more than well packaged public relations.”

British based human rights NGO Friends of Maldives has also condemned the deportation. “The Government of Maldives is once more showing its lack of commitment to freedom of expression in the Maldives and seems intent on disrupting the work of independent media,” said the organisation in a statement released yesterday on its website.

“Abdulla Saeed (Fahala), Minivan Daily reporter is still serving a life sentence for trumped up drug charges, and Ahmed Abbas, well-known artist and political cartoonist is serving a 6 months sentence for a quote he gave to Minivan Daily,” FOM said.

Press freedom organisation, Reporters Without Borders said in November: “The harassment of Minivan and MinivanNews.com journalists must stop…We once again point out that an opposition media has as much right to work freely as a pro-government media,” the organisation said.

Wellman’s deportation comes only days after the publication of a damning 2006 annual report by the South Asian Press Commission (SAPC), which said the Maldives “continues to be a journalist’s prison.”

“The continued detention and house arrest of a number of journalists is an issue of serious concern, as are the charges against five journalists and editors working for Minivan, which would appear to constitute a concerted effort by the authorities to target this publication,” said the report.

The SAPC’s study referred specifically to an incident in which Minivan News’ offices in Colombo were raided by Sri Lankan Interpol officers on a false tip-off from Police Chief, Adam Zahir, that the office was being used to store weapons.

“The Mission deplored the abuse of Interpol against exiled journalists and overseas Maldivian media, the blocking of Dhivehi Observer and Maldives Culture websites, and the jamming of the shortwave frequency of Minivan Radio.” The report added.

Minivan News has recently been working hard to assert greater independence and produce more objective and balanced news. The website has received much praise for its efforts and is seen by people within both the government and the opposition as the premier English language publication on the Maldives, read by many influential members of the international community.

The Maldives currently ranks 144th in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, slightly lower than Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but higher than Russia and Iraq.

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Gary Streeter, Member of the UK Parliament for the Conservative Party, told over a thousand people in Thinadhoo, Gaafu Dhaalu Atoll, last night that their country, “isn’t paradise because you do not have the government that you deserve and you do not have the freedom and the democracy that you deserve.”

He spoke as part of a five day-visit to the Maldives to explore the possibility of further cooperation between his party and the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP). “We are here from the British Conservative party not to tell you how to run your country…your form of democracy must be your own and it must suit you, your country and your culture.

“We are here to lend a good, old-fashioned British helping hand,” he said.

Streeter, who is Chairman of the Conservatives’ International Group, told the party faithful that their work was: “not just about electing the MDP to government. It is about electing the MDP to government for a purpose, and that purpose has to be to make your country better.”

He told the party: “It is now time to move onto the next level…we want to help you with training and know-how and expertise.”

“Your duty is to prepare and get yourselves ready so that when those elections are called it will be the MDP that will take its message to the people and will triumph,” he said.

He also discussed the importance of democracy, saying: “It isn’t something that comes from the west. It isn’t something that comes from Christianity. It is a system of government that has been thrashed out it many parts of the world, over many generations, by many countries.”

“With democracy comes those essential building blocks that we need to build a prosperous and stable country. With democracy comes freedom of speech. With democracy comes the rule of law so that nobody is above the law and that the cases are settled by independent judges. Democracy brings with it a strong civil society, organisation and charities which are the lifeblood and strength of any community,” he said.

“Democracy brings with it a respect for human rights so that you do not fear a knock on the door and two in the morning, so the police do not come after you with their truncheons, just because you simply choose to demonstrate in a peaceful manner,” he added.

He urged the MDP to continue its work, promising: “Even better than electing a government of your choosing is getting rid of a government that you don’t want any more. And that is the best thing about democracy.”

Echoing the words of the British High Commissioner, Dominick Chilcott, he said it will take time: “It’s taken the British people 800 years of grappling with our own democracy and we still have not arrived at our final destination – it is still not perfect.”

But he also praised the MDP on the “remarkable” achievements they have made: “I want to congratulate the MDP for the great progress and advancement it has made in a very short space of time.”

He ended the speech on a positive note saying: “I believe it will be your experience in the near future is that you will have the reforms you want and you will have the elections you want.”

Founder of the MDP, Mohamed Latheef, also spoke at the regional council meeting. It was his first speech in the country since returning from three years of voluntary the day before.

Speaking to people from his native island he said: “A very old gentleman from this island came from me and said, ‘look, I have only one request from you son and it is: I never asked my island’s name to be changed. He – the president – does not have the right to change the name of our island without our permission’. And he said, ‘all I ask is for you to give me back my name and my island.”

Responding to Streeter’s observation that the British and Maldivians have a long history of cooperation, Latheef said: “I think when the Maldives republic failed the British didn’t do much to help us but I am very glad that you are making amends. I am very glad that we have so much support from the Conservative Party and other people in the Labour party.”

Latheef went on to promise that the MDP will try to establish rule of law and will not seek revenge if it is elected to government. Instead, he promised a “process of conciliation”.

“Together we shall overcome and we shall prevail,” he promised the people of Thinadhoo.

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Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa has won the “Best Luxury (4 and 5 star) in the World” category in www.tripadvisor.com’s 2006 Traveler’s Choice Awards as well as “Best Luxury (4 and 5 star) in Asia”.

It is the latest in a long line of awards for Maldivian tourism. “We’re very proud to have won these awards because tripadvisor.com reflects the opinions of genuine travellers from around the world who have visited the Hilton Maldives and experienced the resort in person,” said General Manager, Carsten Schieck. “Our team works hard to provide our guests with the best service possible so we are delighted to be chosen the best luxury hotel in the world”.

Previous awards include “Best Hotel in the World 2005” by the Sunday Times, “Leading Resort in the Indian Ocean 2006” by the World Travel Awards and “Most Exclusive Hotel in the World 2006” by VIP Traveller Magazine.

The resort is home to the world’s only all-glass undersea restaurant and the Maldives’ only destination spa.

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