Page 904 – Minivan News

Nasheed appears on WNYC, Letterman show, in US tour for Island President film

Former President Mohamed Nasheed is touring US media for the launch of the Island President, appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman and WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show, among others.

While the environmental message of the film was the subject of most interviews, many interviewers also focused on Nasheed’s claims to have been ousted in a coup on February 7, and his expressed disappointment in the US response.

“The UK government has been the only government that has been straightforward. I was shocked by the Indian and US governments in the rapidness with which they recognised the new regime,” Nasheed said, on the Lopate program.

Challenged over whether his resignation had been at “gunpoint”, Nasheed said this was a phrase used by a journalist to describe what had happened during the day.

“The military had arms. The rebellious police were outside the base and the mutinous military were inside. They said if I did not resign within the hour there would be bloodshed. ‘Gunpoint’ was a journalist’s description – but yes, for all practical purposes I was forced to resign,” Nasheed said on the Lopate program.

“They tried to arrest me in the presidential residence, but a few hours after the event some military officers who were still loyal helped me slip out of the presidential residence and go to my family home. A whole lot of people came out in support of me, and [the new government] have not been able to get me because of that.”

The new regime “is the old dictatorship we voted out of office,” Nasheed said. “Gayoom is back in the country, His children are in cabinet, he is in power. Dr Waheed is just a facade.”

Nasheed said it was “ludicrous” to claim that his government was brought down by “undemocratic practices”.

“The election was not enough to consolidate democracy. We have to build capacity within these institutions. The new constitution envisaged a fair and free judiciary, but the first elections brought a new executive, followed by the first free and fair parliamentary elections, but there was no election for the judiciary – and all the all the judges were handpicked by Gayoom.

“They were shielding the dictatorship from human rights abuses and corruption cases. We had to break the circle, and the body trusted to do that was the JSC. To argue that it was our undemocratic practice that brought us down is ludicrous. To argue that this was a reason for an uprising… there was no uprising.”
As well as speaking to several newspapers and film magazines, along with Island President Director Jon Shenk, Nasheed also appeared on the popular Late Show with David Letterman, which averages four million viewers a week.

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Police investigate “suspicious” death of a newborn

Police are investigating the suspicious death of a two-day old healthy newborn at the ADK hospital on Tuesday, Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef has confirmed.

According to the Haneef, the investigation commenced after police discovered the baby boy’s mother had been married three months before the delivery, suggesting that the baby was conceived before the marriage.

“There are some suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of the baby. We have found out the mother was married just three months before the baby was born,” Haneef noted.

Speaking to Minivan News, Managing Director of ADK hospital, Ahmed Afaal, said doctors who examined the boy has declared it was “sudden death” as the boy was born perfectly healthy and had no complications.

Afaal said the real cause of death cannot be identified without an autopsy in sudden death cases.

He noted that the boy had died while under the care of mother, who is reportedly from Nilandhoo in Gaaf Alif Atoll.

Newborns are not admitted to the nursery and transferred under family care if no complications are found, he added.

“The hospital staff were alerted by the family on Tuesday morning after the boy was found not breathing. The staff examined the body and declared the boy was dead,” according Afaal.

Meanwhile, local media Haveeru has quoted an unidentified official from ADK saying that the “doctors assume the baby had died of choking but that they couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause of death without carrying out an autopsy”.

Haveeru quoted another police media official saying “the boy had an identical bruise to the sides of his nose” and had claimed their journalists had observed the bruise.

However, both Afaal and Sub-Inspector Haneef did not confirm any physical injuries and added they cannot comment further as the investigation is pending.

However Haneef added that the police so far believe that the death was “normal”.

Stigma

Under the form of sharia law practiced in the Maldives, both sex before marriage and adultery are offences punishable by flogging. But attitudes towards sex reveal a discrepancy. While it is acknowledged in private that both take place, social norms and cultural attitudes restrict public discussions on the subject. As a result, students are not taught about contraception at school as for many this would be tantamount to condoning sex outside of marriage.

While premarital and extramarital sex is widespread, high rates of divorce and remarriage (including sex between marriages), and poor access and practice of contraception lead to a high number of unwanted pregnancies. The stigma of having a child out of wedlock compels women and girls to opt for abortions – which is illegal in the Maldives except to save a mother’s life, or if a child suffers from a congenital defect such as thalassemia.

Subsequently, anecdotal evidence suggests some women have resorted to abortion-inducing pills and injections administered by amateur abortionists, while others turn to harmful vaginal preparations, containing chemicals such as bleach or kerosene. Although infrequent, some insert objects into their uterus or induce abdominal trauma.

The severity of the situation was signalled last year following the discovery of several dead premature babies and abandoned alive on Male’ and across islands.

The Criminal Court last year sentenced the mother of a prematurely born baby found inside a milk can in ViliMale’ on 19 May 2011 to one year imprisonment.

Aminath Shaira, 30 of Manadhoo in Noonu Atoll, was charged with disobedience to an order under article 88(a) of the 1968 penal code as well as violations under the Child Protection Act.

Her accomplice in the crime, Mariyam Rizna, 18, of Guraidhoo in Kaafu Atoll, was sentenced to six months for assisting Shaira in delivering the baby. Rizna’s fingerprints were found on the Coast Milk can.

In the same month, a dead infant was found in a plastic bag in the swimming track area of Male’. A medical examination later concluded that the baby’s had sustained cuts, bruises and other wounds. No one was arrested or charged.

Meanwhile, in June 2011 an abandoned newborn was discovered alive inside a garage on Gaafu Dhaalu Thinadhoo island while in a similar case, a newborn was found abanded alive in bushes near the Wataniya telecommunications tower in Hulhumale’ during Novermber 2010.

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Comment: How do you solve a problem like the Maldives Police Service?

Today marks 79 years of Policing in the Maldives. Pity, that it has become so controversial an issue to appreciate.

A mistrust of the Maldivian police and security services has been ingrained in me for most of my life. I grew up with stories of arbitrary arrests, brutality in jails, and the concept that the police were not there to protect and serve my interests, but those of their immediate superiors. In fact, one of the fundamental things that I had to accept in 2008, after the country’s first multi-party Presidential election, was the idea that the Police were no longer ‘enemies’, or even the ‘golha-force’, but very much part of the apparatus of state that any government had to take into consideration. It wasn’t an easy task.

Controlling my body not to shudder at the sight of a blue camouflaged uniform and black ankle boots, and understanding that not every arrest the police made was arbitrary. Most of all learning to trust the police took time, commitment and a lot of stubbornness. Maybe that sense of apprehension and mistrust went both ways.

No doubt, the prospect of a MDP government would have filled most senior police officers with a high sense of foreboding. After all, these were the very people that they had seen on the other side of an investigation table, inside a jail cell and on the street loudly confronting them at every given opportunity. Let’s not take lightly the extent to which the police were a political tool of Maumoon’s authoritarian regime, and as a result, that they were very much a product of the democratic reform process in the Maldives at that time.

The Maldives Police Service was created in September 2004. Mostly out of the need to placate the international community, and to perform a PR exercise after the human rights debacle that was 12/13 August 2004.

Instead of policing duties being conducted by the National Security Service or the Army, we got the Maldives Police Service and the Maldives National Defence Force. Basically – blue and green uniforms. Two hastily divided institutions plunged into a fast-changing political environment to which they were inextricably tied. Millions were poured into the MPS – equipment, training, strategic action plans, philosophies of policing and of course, new blue uniforms. Unfortunately, it seems that most of the training went into how to use new equipment rather than how to Police within new democratic laws. Of course, Adam Zahir being at the helm was never going to help. Neither did the Hussain Solah incident, especially after Evan Naseem.

Nonetheless, the MPS emerged as an institution with heavy amounts of funding, a select group of highly educated officers, very young, not always disciplined recruits and a top brass that was intent on maintaining the status quo. Many in the top brass had spent years in the NSS, looked up to individuals like Adam Zahir as father figures and in some cases, had managed to log quite a few ‘favours’ through the Maumoon regime and therefore were heavily indebted. Add to this the ‘Star Force’, the frontline of an authoritarian defence whose very existence and modus operandi depended on the long leash of their superiors and government.

During the establishment of the MPS, human rights discourse, although in the Maldivian mainstream and a significant facet of the MPS PR machine, had not and it now seems has not filtered through to the officer on the street. The MDP government due to their personal histories of being victims of human rights violations and their voicing out against police brutality faced greater pressure to ensure that these incidents did not take place under their watch.

Political prisoners were no longer an issue, but it would be unfair to say that maltreatment of detainees in jails completely disappeared. We could say it lessened significantly and that it was no longer systematic. There was definitely more oversight, with the Human Rights Commission and the Police Integrity Commission, but it was still a work in progress. A work in progress, which was focusing on issues such as the reduction of drugs, terrorism, gang violence and theft rather than simply on political protests.

Yes, the whole institution still unnecessarily stuttered at the sight of a protest, but there was more to the ‘Protect and Serve’ during the last three years than ever before. I suppose however, that ‘works in progress’ – especially in an infant democracy – are vulnerable, and leadership was not always forthcoming.

The extent of its vulnerability and the ability to which outside forces with vested interests managed to manipulate the disenchanted and politicised officers on the inside was evident on 7 February 2012. As a result, I find myself asking, ‘now what?’

Now that the police have played such an inexplicably outrageous role in engineering a coup and bringing down the country’s first democratically elected government – who are they protecting and serving now?

It cannot be the Maldivian people. No matter which side of the political spectrum you fall, however much you hate Anni and the MDP, I cannot imagine that many people genuinely condone the actions of the police on 6-8 Feb. Unless you’re vicious Visam (MP) of course!

I for one condemn it with every fibre of my being. I don’t believe that all police officers participated or even supported the actions of the mutinying officers on the 6th night. Many went along out of an ill-begotten sense of camaraderie to their fellow officers who they believed would have been arrested by the MNDF. As they should have been – nothing justifies a coup. Especially the very politicised actions that preceded it.

I understand that many officers who don’t accept this new situation can’t just up and leave, be it because of a need to provide for their families or a sense of duty to an institution that they have helped develop, but it is difficult to remember this when faced with footage of the carnage that was February 8 and the stories that have followed since.

The re-emergence of individuals like [Police Commissioner] Abdulla Riyaz is frightening. He may have undergone a course in customer needs and conducting business through social media, but the nature of the man remains the same: brutal. Unapologetically so.

As such, the use of force although granted to policemen by law, seems again far too easy a whim for officers to use rather than a measure to be taken in the gravest of circumstances. The fact that they have to be accountable to their actions, that they must provide a greater example, is non-existent. That Abdulla Riyaz is surrounded by deputies who seem to either share his beliefs or are willing to silently submit to it is scary, that his superiors are opportunistic nitwits like Jameel and FA is even more chill inducing, and most of all that the Police Integrity Commission is powerless, is incredibly frightening.

So, how do I feel about the police now? Scared. Infuriated. Frustrated. And heartbreakingly disappointed. On the 79th anniversary of Policing in the Maldives, I do not wish Police Officers hearty congratulations. Instead, I wish for them a sense of responsibility and understanding of their role in the disruption of a democratic state. I continue to wish that action will be taken against officers who so blatantly violated the police act and abused unarmed citizens. I call for somebody to be held accountable for the actions of Police officers on February 8, I call for a re-evaluation of the need of the ‘Special Operations’ Unit, and I call for the resignations of Abdulla Riyaz, Hussain Waheed, Abdulla Phairoosh, FA and Jameel. And I call for an early election.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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Island President resonates deeply following coup: Grist magazine

The Island President film resonates all the more deeply following last month’s coup in the Maldives, writes Eban Goodstein for Grist magazine.

The story’s ending — perhaps tragic, perhaps a powerful continuation — is today unfolding in real time. The Maldives is a string of 2,000 islands off the coast of India, home to about 300,000 people. The highest point in the country is only a few feet above sea level. Until 2008, the islands had been under dictatorial rule for decades.

This is the best film dealing with global warming in years. It is a story of classical proportion: of true heroism, courage and nobility, of eloquent soliloquy, of intimate moments, and of political intrigue, compromise, and betrayal.

The film is also visually stunning. The vast blue ocean is both a serene paradise, and a powerful, threatening force, driving Nasheed’s political urgency. The Maldives capital, Malé, looks like an oasis of buildings rising out of the ocean. When asked by a reporter what was his plan B, should there be no action to slow global warming, Nasheed responds, “We will die.”

Shenk follows Nasheed in strategy sessions with his cabinet as the team seeks to leverage their moral argument as the first victims of climate change, canaries in the coal mine. Nasheed gives speeches, and makes his case with heads of states and ministers at the U.K. Parliament, at the U.N. General Assembly, in India, and finally — during the dark, crushing days of Copenhagen.

Last month, just after I screened the movie, President Nasheed was forced at gunpoint to resign from his office. Political opponents seized on the economic crisis and fundamentalists objections to Nasheed’s modernising Islam. At clear and ongoing risk to his life, Nasheed decided to remain in the country, writing, speaking, leading marches, and fighting for democracy.

And this is the enduring lesson from the movie. President Nasheed and thousands of others in the Maldives understand that their land and lives are threatened both by the rising seas, and by the corrupt politics of business as usual. They continue to fight for both democracy and climate justice, in the face of imprisonment, beating, torture, and murder.

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Island President inadvertently records a bygone era in the Maldives: Village Voice

Blessed – or maybe cursed – with fortuitous timing, Jon Shenk’s lionising documentary of Mohamed Nasheed, the first democratically elected leader of the Republic of Maldives, closely follows the charming president from 2008 to 2009, his first year in office, writes Melissa Anderson, in a review for The Village Voice.

The film, a hopeful portrait of a crusader that premiered at Telluride last September, is now inadvertently a record of a bygone era: Nasheed was forced to leave office February 7, the result of a coup by loyalists to his predecessor, the dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

Although obviously unable to include the tumultuous events of the past seven weeks beyond a closing intertitle, The Island President briskly presents the broader history of this country of 400,000. As in his previous doc, Lost Boys of Sudan (2003), Shenk forgoes voiceover, the salient facts of this country, best-known as a luxury-resort destination, relayed via the sit-downs with Nasheed and members of his team that dominate the first third of the film.

As Nasheed wryly points out, the beaches where celebrities and aristos have romped were also—quite literally—the same spots where the torture sanctioned by Gayoom, who ruled from 1978 to 2008, occurred.

The thoughts Nasheed shared with Shenk post-Copenhagen now ring as foreboding: “Coming back to Maldives, you realize how impossible the whole situation is.” After the chaos that erupted in this island paradise two months ago, Nasheed’s vice president, Mohamed Waheed Hassan – a seemingly benign talking head seen briefly in the doc – is now the country’s leader.

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Two minors arrested in connection with the murder of ‘sorcerer’ confess to accessory in court

Two minors arrested and charged with the murder of Ali Hassan ‘Ayyube’, 76 of Kudahuvadhoo in Haa Dhaalu pleaded guilty to accessory in court today.

Newspaper Haveeru reported that the two 16 year-olds were charged with spying on Hassan before the murder, and assisting the assailants to hide the weapons they used to murder Hassan.

Another 17 year old boy was also summoned to court today in connection with the case, and charged for involvement in murdering Hassan.

He told the court that he wishes to continue the trial with a lawyer and the judge granted his request.

Last Sunday the step-grandson of Hassan was summoned to the Criminal Court for his involvement in the case.

He told the court that Hassan was murdered because he was informed that Hassan killed the mother of Fauzan Mohamed, a main suspect in the murder, using sorcery.

Hassan’s step-grandson told the court that his part in the murder involved spying on his step-grandfather, and also admitted that he got a long sharp knife because Fauzan told him that he want to cut Hassan’s throat.

On January 8 this year, the body of 76 year-old Ali Hassan was discovered with multiple stab wounds in an abandoned home on Kudahuvadhoo.

On January 31, Police arrested six persons for their alleged involvement in the murder of Hassan.

After Hassan’s body was found on Kudahuvadhoo at about 8:00pm on January 8, a special team from the police’s Serious and Organised Crime Department were dispatched to the island the very same day.

The victim himself had previously been accused of using sorcery on a 37 year-old woman, who was reported missing at 2:00am on December 4, 2011 and whose body was found floating in Kudahuvadhoo lagoon later that morning.

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Coup was live on TV, Nasheed tells One Earth

For a man who was tossed out of office by a police and military revolt less than two months ago, former President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives seems positively ebullient, determined to dramatise the dangers of climate change just as passionately as a citizen activist as he did as a head of state, writes George Black for One Earth magazine, in a Q&A with Nasheed.

GB: People say that a big part of your appeal is that you don’t play by the normal diplomatic rules.

MN: Well, what have the rules of diplomacy done for the specific situation we face? Last month there was a coup in the Maldives. But the United States and India were unable to understand what was happening. What’s to understand? The coup was live on TV! The problem with normal diplomacy is that it just wants to maintain the status quo.

GB: I’m guessing you see a parallel there to the rules of diplomacy as they were practiced in Copenhagen.

MN: People don’t want to move away from what’s comfortable. They like things the way they are. They come to the talks, they go home to their beautiful wife and their kids. They have no passion. You can’t express your concerns openly in the normal language of diplomacy. You lose sight of the bigger picture, so you develop short-sighted solutions. Your diplomacy is played out according to the text messages you’re getting from certain industries.

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Democracy not a one-off event: Dr Hassan Saeed

A few months ago when my friend decided to buy an air-conditioning unit for his house, he was overwhelmed by the number of people who were ready to offer him advice on the best unit to buy but eventually he made his choice, writes the President’s Special Advisor, Dr Hassan Saeed, for Haveeru.

The great day came when the engineer installed it. My friend was a bit puzzled that he left without even turning it on but he was so looking forward to enjoying the cool air that he put it to the back of his mind. And then the problems started….

It stopped working properly and became less and less effective as days passed. When my friend rang the company he bought the AC from, he could never get hold of anyone or if he did manage to speak to someone they didn’t seem interested in his problems-let alone in helping him fix them.

Eventually his AC almost ground to a halt, making alarming noises and was clearly becoming dangerous and at that point the company did start to take some notice and rushed round to his house. And you know what really annoyed him? The company acted as though this was the first that they had heard of the problem…

You’ll recognise this story because in reality, of course, it is describing the Maldives, the international community and our democratic journey of the last three years.

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