Author: JJ Robinson

Maldivian journalist threatened with beheading

Death threats calling for the beheading of controversial Maldivian journalist and blogger Ismail Khilath ‘Hilath’ Rasheed have been published on Muraasil.com, a popular publishing platform that allows anyone to publish content in Dhivehi.

Rasheed, a journalist of 10 years experience, is known for being highly critical of Islamic fundamentalism in the Maldives.

The threats, which Rasheed translated from Dhivehi on his blog, called the journalist an “animal who has blasphemed” and said he “had no right to live”.

“Let it be made known to this guy that Maldivians are an Islam-loving and Islamic Sharia law-loving people. Become a terrorist in the name of religion,” demanded the author, identified only as ‘Jihad’.

“I am of the opinion that even if you kill him, you are all innocent. Cut off his head,” said the article’s author, identified only as ‘Jihad’.

The piece was quickly removed from Muraasil following complaints.

Muraasil’s founder Nasrulla Adnan explained that while anyone is able to create an account and publish articles on the site, new authors had to abided by a code of conduct and were carefully moderated. Only regular and approved contributors were able to post content without it being reviewed, he explained.

“Obviously that [content] was posted by someone who has published for a long time,” Nasrulla said. “We took it down and revoked their [publishing] rights.”

Rasheed said he felt the threats were “quite awful” and he was “now afraid some fanatic is going to attack me.”

“The situation with free speech in the country is very precarious,” he said. “We have all these institutions and laws, but extremists are using the umbrella of Islam to to incite violence against women, children and bloggers. I don’t think that Maldivan people should be silent about this.”

President of the Maldivian Journalists’ Association (MJA) Ahmed ‘Hiriga’ Zahir said such threats against the media were not common but were occasionally made by “some fanatical people, particularly when [a journalist] reports on religious matters.”

“One of my colleagues has had threats made against them before by certain groups,” he noted, observing that “much of the media is silent about fundamentalism and religious extremism – even the president is very silent on religious issues.”

“I think most journalists are aware that according to the Constitution there are certain limitations on press freedom, such as not being able to write anything against the basic principles of Islam,” Hiriga explained.

“I think the media needs to be much more open towards covering these issues and not be silent, [even] if they face threats. We are a moderate country and we can’t tolerate this kind of fundamentalism. It does not reflect the views of most people and I don’t think many people in this country are fanatics.”

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Local surfers launch documentary at Male’ event

The Maldives Surfing Association (MSA) held a barbecue and screened a local surfing documentary earlier this week in an effort to promote the sport in the Maldives.

The MSA’s Chairperson, Mohamed Shiuneel, says such events are necessary to promote the sport because surfing’s development in the Maldives has largely been restricted to the resort industry, which in some cases he says have even claimed ownership of surf breaks.

“Maybe it’s because tourism is growing so fast – even safari boats are now [claiming] surf breaks,” he says.

Local surfers have competed very successfully in countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka, Shiuneel notes.

“The government can help us – we need to protect the surf point areas,” he says. “There are many environmental issues that can affect them. For example, when the artificial beach was reclaimed it really affected the Male’ surf break.”

Pro surfing was famously introduced to the Maldives in 1973 by an Australian surfer called Tony Hinde, who was shipwrecked in North Male’ Atoll during a voyage from Sri Lanka to Africa. Hinde named many of the country’s most popular surf breaks, giving them names like Sultans, Jails and Honkeys, before falling in love with the country and deciding to stay.

He converted to Islam, changed his named to Tony Hussein Hinde, married a local woman, opened his own surf tourism agency, and died of a heart attack after riding a wave in 2008.

Shiuneel explains that while Hinde introduced pro surfing and introduced short boards, “Maldivians have been here since the second century. Many people like my grandfather talk about Maldivians surfing on a plank of wood.”

In recent years the Maldives has begun to attract an increasing number of professional surfers, drawn for the same reasons as Hinde. Accessing many of the breaks remains a challenge however, with many restricted to those with either local knowledge or those who stay in a nearby resort.

“A lot of people don’t know how to access some of the breaks, and beginners can struggle to get access to surfboards,” Shiuneel says, acknowledging that sport is not as easy to take up as it should be.

“I think we live on a small island and have a very defensive mentality. It’s a geographical problem as much as anything. And While the Surf Association tries its best to run development programmes, we do struggle for funding.”

Surf politics and issues of funding matter little to many of the clubs members. Asim ‘Chin Chon’, who describes himself as “a local legend”, says surfing “is the best sport for the Maldives. You shouldn’t be driving around the island in a sports car – instead, every house should have a surfboard. This should be normal for an island city.”

“Look at it, it’s God’s gift,” he says, sweeping his arm at the waves breaking on the nearby seawall.

“It’s relaxed; there’s no jet skis, just paddling out on a board – that’s nature.”

The surf documentary will be available from the Sea Sports store in Male’ and the Maldives Surfing Association in a week’s time.

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BBC films as whale shark mobbed by tourists

The Maldivian Whale Shark Research Program (MWSRP) has been featured on the BBC World News fast:track program, which includes footage of a shark mobbed by dozens of tourists from nearby boats.

The MWSRP was recently the subject of controversy over its use of tagging, a method it claims it ceased in May 2009.

Local divers and safari boats claimed the tagging was scaring the sharks away from their habitat in the Maamigilli area of South Ari atoll.

The researchers however argued that the sheer number of tourists swimming with the sharks, together with congested boat traffic around the animals, was to blame, and provided data from their research that suggested the tagging was unrelated. The Maamagilli area, they noted, was unique in that even sharks who travelled as far as India always returned to the same area.

The controversy culminated when the researchers were threatened at knife point by a staff member from a safari boat.

Shortly afterwards, the Ministry of Fisheries suspended the MWSRP’s research permit in late January pending an investigation into the tagging methods. The researchers have meanwhile indicated their willingness to continue the program without tagging, placing greater emphasis on education and community involvement.

In the BBC program the researchers emphasised their work with local schools and resorts. However during a spotting trip with a film crew and a group of school students, the researchers came across a whale shark surrounded by boats and tourists, which BBC journalist Mike London describes as “an almost textbook example of the kind of encounter the program is keen to stamp out.”

MWRSP researcher Adam Harman comments that “there’s a lot of splashing going on in the water and unfortunately too many boats and too many people for us to go in, so we’re just going to avoid it.”

Concluding the program, London reports that through developing ‘best practice’ proceedures and codes of conduct with the tourist industry, the MWSRP “aims to stop large scale whale shark encounters like the one we’ve just seen, which it fears could eventually scare the sharks away.”

President of the Divers Assocication Maldives (DAM), Zoona Naseem, said the organisation favoured the establishment of proper guidelines for whale shark encounters, adding “it does not matter whether it’s tourists or researchers – no one should be touching the whale sharks.”

Watch the program here:

fast:track uncovers the Maldivian Whale Shark

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Alhan Fahmy criticises Adhaalath Party for “use of Islam as a political tool”

MP of the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) Alhan Fahmy has demanded the resignation of Adhaalath Party members from cabinet posts should the party continue “to take advantage of the political situation by using Islam as a tool.”

Fahmy’s comments, made at a recent MDP rally in Hulhumale’, came in response to claims made earlier this week by Adhaalath Party’s Vice President Asim Mohamed, suggesting that no political party in the Maldives would be able to run the government without the party’s support.

Asim furthermore stated that the party would cooperate with whichever major party ran the government, and that the Adhaalath Party’s religious knowledge and cooperation was very important for the country.

The party recently spearheaded protests against regulations licensing the sale of alcohol to non-Muslims at establishments on inhabited islands, together with Islamic NGO Jammiyyathu Salaf and others.

The leading role taken by Adhaalath Party member Sheikh Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed, also the State Minister of Islamic Affairs, was considered by some to be an act of political defiance. Shaheem claimed at the time that other senior members of the Islamic were also prepared to resign from the government over the issue.

“I don’t think that would have been a bad outcome,” said Fahmy, speaking to Minivan News, “however the president is more mature on this [subject].”

Fahmy said that if the Adhaalath Party was willing to be in coalition with government, “it should not be working against it and threatening it by saying no government can exist without the support of the Adhaalath Party.”

He observed that the large crowd of protesters had gathered over the issue of liquor regulations, and not necessarily in support of the Adhaalath Party.

“They were rallying against the cultivation of alcohol in areas where they lived. That’s different,” he said.

“Adhaalath are a political party, and the objective of any political party is to overtake the current government. But they are playing a very damaging game by being part of the government and using Islam as a tool [for political support].”

Fahmy said he was concerned about “extremist” elements in the Adhaalath Party and its attempts to dictate government policy, but noted it also had a moderate side.

“Shaheem is generally thought of as moderate,” Fahmy said. “He was my room mate when I studied at the Islamic University in Medina, which some people used to call a ‘terrorist training institute’. I know about the whole idea of the Maldives becoming a democratic country so as to remove the legal barriers for scholars to preach their ideas.”

“But I feel using Islam to leverage grassroots support against the government is dangerous for the country,” he said.

Spokesman for the President Mohamed Zuhair said that “while I have publically stated that the president has full confidence in the scholars of the Islamic Ministry, as a politician and a member of a political party Alhan may be voicing the sentiment of grassroots elements in the party.”

Zuhair said at the time of his election the president had promised he would leave religious matters in the hands of qualified religious scholars, “and the Adhaalath Party was the only party that showed interest in political administration and the only suitable political partner that was available.”

President of the Adhaalath Party Sheikh Hussein Rasheed Ahmed claimed that Alhan Fahmy “is an agent sent from the DRP infiltrate the MDP”, observing that the former DRP politician had been “fed and grown by the DRP” and “has not yet given a valid reason for leaving the party.”

Sheikh Hussein also noted that the MDP was sharing the government with the Adhaalath Party, and explained that it would not have come to administration without Adhaalath’s support.

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President receives red carpet treatment in Germany

President Mohamed Nasheed has received a red carpet welcome in Germany by Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel, including full military honours.

Speaking at a joint press conference yesterday, Merkel said she doubted any global agreement on climate change would be reached in 2010, and blamed China and India for their unwillingness “to enter any binding commitments.” This lack of cooperation from two major powers was, she said, a “structural problem” for any climate treaty.

For his part, Nasheed appealed to the German public to push for a climate change agreement, claiming that “we won’t survive as a country if there is no understanding or agreement.”

Nasheed said he expected a global treaty to emerge following the UN climate forum in Copenhagen, but agreed “it may not happen this year.” He said he hoped Germany “will continue to assist the Maldives in its efforts to strengthen and consolidate democracy.”

redcarpet3This is Nasheed’s first official visit to Germany, a country widely considered to be one of the more environmentally concious in Europe and a leader in the practical and economically-sensible application of renewable energy technology. Germany has also been very vocal on issues relating to climate change and generous with development funding.

Later this week the president is due to speak at the Freie Universitat Berlin, where he is expected to press for the world to “ignore the deniers and continue the fight to save the planet”, in the wake of the Copenhagen Summit and leaked emails alleging scientists at the University of East Anglia in the UK colluded to falsify climate data.

Minivan News understands the president will likely call on the EU to be bolder in its commitments to reducing climate change, and perhaps even encourage it to commit to carbon neutrality and set a new direction for investors and industry.

The climate change cause is suffering something of a ‘crisis of faith’ across many countries in Europe following the economic downturn. A similar trend has been noted in the US, where a Gallup poll recently reported that 41 per cent of the population considered claims about climate change to be exaggerated, “the highest since Gallup’s trend on this measure began in 1997.”

Nasheed is expected to take climate change sceptics to task in his address, and condemn “lazy conspiracy theories”.

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Malaysia Airlines withdraws lawsuit following out-of-court settlement

Malaysia Airlines has withdrawn a long-running US$35.5 million lawsuit against Air Maldives in the Malaysian High Court, after the Maldivian government withdrew a US$90 million counter-claim in the Singapore International Arbitration Centre.

Malaysia’s national news agency Bernama reported that an out-of-court settlement had been reached between the two parties after discussions on 14 February. The Maldivian cabinet held a meeting to discuss such a settlement in late December.

According to Bernama, the agreement was reached after “intense negotiations” between Malaysian Airline Systems (MAS) executives Dr Mohd Amin Khan (General Manager of Network and Revenue) and Dr Wafi Nazrin Abdul Hamid (General Manager of Corporate and Legal Services), and State Finance Minister Ahmed Assad and Attorney General Husnu Suood representing the Maldives.

Last week Suood told parliament that the Air Maldives case presented “legal challenges” and there was little documentation in favour of Air Maldives.

Neither Assad nor Suood were responding to enquiries at time of press.

Failed airline

Air Maldives went international in 1994 in a joint venture between Maldivian government and Naluri (then Malaysian Helicopter Services Berhad), a holding company owned by the chairman of Malaysia Airlines, Tan Sri Tajudin Ramli.

Naluri paid $8 million for a 49 per cent stake in the national carrier, according to a report by Alkman Granitsas in the Far Eastern Economic Review. The plan was to run short-haul flights connecting the Maldives to major regional hubs, including Colombo, Trivandrum and Kuala Lumpur.

But despite a burgeoning tourism industry the airline met an inglorious fate in 2000, spiralling into bankruptcy amid ambitious expansion into long-haul routes and allegations of mismanagement under the directorship of Anbaree Abdul Satter, also the controversial head of the National Security Service (NSS).

Initally a short-haul carrier, the airline leased three aircraft and started running long-haul routes, including Gatwick, and quickly found itself facing losses somewhere between US$50 to US$70 million. Granitsas noted at the time that the airline’s collapse in April 2000 met with little comment from the Maldives government or media, and suggested that the resultant plunge in business confidence led to a run on the rufiyaa and a dollar shortage that crippled the economy.

He quoted Husnu Suood, then a lawyer representing Airbus, as saying “the current economic crisis can be party attributed to the collapse of Air Maldives.”

A former member of the Air Maldives cabin crew told Minivan News that news of the company’s collapse was dropped “very suddenly”.

“I was on board the last flight between Male’ and Dubai when we were told,” she said. “We landed in Dubai at 8:30pm carrying a load of Hajj pilgrims from Colombo, and somebody came on board to tell us to stop any flights.  We were flown back [to Male’] and two sets of crew in Dubai were recalled.”

She added that while there had been rumours that the company was facing financial difficulty, “we’d started picking up really full flights to London Gatwick and were already planning the roster for Charles de Gaulle in Paris and Johannesburg South Africa.”

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Umar Naseer accuses government of interfering in Adam Naseer trial

The Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) has accused the government of interfering in the trial of Adam Naseer, labelled by the President Mohamed Nasheed as one of the country’s ‘top six’ drug lords.

Naseer was aquitted by the Criminal Court last Sunday following a year-long police investigation, after the judge cited a lack of evidence.

DRP’s Vice President Umar Naseer claimed Adam Naseer was freed because police withheld evidence from the court, notably fingerprint and video evidence, and accused the government of trying to influence the judicial process.

“Police failed to produce video and fingerprint evidence. There is no reason why police should fail in this, it’s very basic. I suspect interference by senior government officials,” he said.

He furthermore said he would seek the dismissal of Attorney General Husnu Suood through parliament’s internal affairs committee, accusing him of working with Adam Naseer during the 2008 trial of Abdul Hameed Abdul Samad. Suood worked in a private law practice before accepting the post of attorney general.

“Adam Naseer is a friend of Husnu Suood,” Umar claimed, alleging to journalists that Naseer offered police witnesses in the Samad case bribes of Rf30,000 and a motorcycle each to alter their testimony.

Asked how he came by such information, Umar, a former police officer himself, said he was approached by several serving police “who knew I was advocating harsher punishment for drug offenders.”

Asked why the government would seek to acquit someone they themselves had labelled a drug lord, Umar said “if the government not included Adam Naseer in the list, the public would have been surprised.”

Spokesman for the President Mohamed Zuhair said Umar Naseer’s allegations were “a load of rubbish.”

“The attorney general has no links to Adam Naseer. If Umar Naseer has legal evidence to back these claims he should act like a respectable political leader and take it to the police rather than the media. Otherwise he looks in danger of trying to [slander] to gain political fame.”

Adam Naseer was acquitted not so much by a lack of evidence as by “intrinsic problems with the judiciary. It is was the only part of the state did not go through reform and many of the judges are the same as they were under the former government,” Zuhair said.

Prosecutor General Ahmed Muizzu said the PG’s office would prefer not to discuss the Adam Naseer case as it had not yet exhausted all levels of the judicial system and intended to appeal to the high court. He said he expected it would take two weeks for the appeal to be lodged at the high court.

Sergeant Abdul Muhsin from the Maldives Police Service also declined to comment, claiming that “we will respect the decision of the court whatever it decides.”

The “usual proceedure” is to submit all evidence at hand to the court, he explained.

Husnu Suood had not responded to Minivan News at time of press.

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Individual liquor licenses will not be renewed, says Economic Ministry

The Ministry of Economic Development will not renew individual liquor permits, according to State Minister Adhil Saleem, and new regulations governing the sale of alcohol will still apply minus the controversial clause permitting the sale of alcohol on inhabited islands.

The Ministry will continue to honour existing licenses until they expired, Adhil said.

“They were issued in increments of six months to a year,” he explained. “After that there will be no access to liquor on any inhabited island in the Maldives, be it by expats, resort staff, or whoever.”

The exception, he confirmed, were UN staff and diplomats who were governed by international conventions, making “the Maldives and Saudi Arabia the only countries effectively banning the availability of liquor for non-Muslims.”

State Minister for Islamic Affairs Sheikh Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed said there was scope for alcohol to be sold to non-Muslims in an Islamic state, and said comparisons with Saudi Arabia were false because alcohol was readily available to non-Muslims at resorts and the Hulhule Island Hotel (HIH) on the airport island.

“The tourism industry has sold alcohol [to non-Muslims] for a long time,” he explained. “But it is a concern to open bars in [wider Maldivian] society. Maldivians do not want to have bars near schools and mosques, not because they are angry towards non-Muslim expatriates. Teachers and doctors are respected members of society.”

Shaheem observed that even in countries like Malaysia and Qatar where alcohol was sold, bars were not permitted near schools and mosques.

“The Ministry for Economic Development did not discuss this with us, and we are supposed to be a unity government.”

Adhil agreed that as the Holiday Inn was located near a school, parliament and the Centre for the Holy Qur’an, “I don’t think it will have a license to sell liquor any time soon.”

Prohibition black markets

While the government had effectively banned alcohol from inhabited islands with the removal of both the individual licenses and the new regulations, Adhil noted that “the demand [for alcohol] has not gone. There is big demand from the country’s 100,000 non-Muslim expatriates.”

The resorts and HIH near Male’ were not an option for many expatriates on salaries of less than US$1000 a month, he explained.

“The resorts will be fine for accountants and managers who can afford the boat ride and the sale price at resort bars,” Adhil said. “And those who used to drink alcohol with dinner now have a 20 minute boat ride to HIH. It is like Australia sending Maldivian or Indian expatriates to Tasmania when they want to chew betel nut.”

Adhil claimed the issue would trigger a problem of law enforcement “when [alcohol] is somehow smuggled through. We have not done anything to dampen the demand and we cannot hope to plug the supply – that has never been achieved anywhere in the world.”

He suggested that beyond organising protests, “the scholars have not addressed the issue of demand. They need to go to the street corners and make the non-Muslim expatriates listen.”

He said he doubted many expatriates were even aware of the new arrangements.

Development paths

Shaheem emphasised that neither the Adhaalath party nor the Islamic Ministry were “against tourism, the economy or development.”

“My concern was also that radical groups might have used [the new regulations] as an excuse for an attack, and this would have caused the economy to go down along with the number of foreigners visiting [the Maldives].”

Shaheem noted that he had recently returned from a trip to the UK where he attended discussions on counter-terrorism with a range of relevant authorities, including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Cabinet Office, Home Office and heads of counter-terrorism in the Justice Ministry.

“There was a lot of discussion around how to fight ideologies and radical ideas,” he explained.

Adhil said he felt the Ministry’s regulations had been “deliberately misrepresented on account of political interests”, in a push to introduce non-alcohol tourism and “wipe alcohol from the country altogether.”

What would likely happen, he predicted, was that island communities would make their own development decisions “without blanket regulations.” Herathera resort, he noted by way of example, is only separated from an inhabited island “by a recently dug canal.”

“What this does mean is that the government’s plans for development, as set out by the MDP, including schools, transport networks, and healthcare, won’t be achievable in 5-10 years. The Maldives public has to realise this, because otherwise we’ll be depending on Saudi Arabia to achieve progress before 2060.”

Shaheem however suggested there was extensive potential for the Maldives to develop “cultural tourism” on inhabited islands.

“A lot of hotels, such as the Intercontinental in Medina, are without alcohol,” he explained. “What about developing alcohol-free resorts; Islamic tourism, just like Islamic banking?”

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TVM claims live broadcasting of parliament “unrealistic”

Television Maldives (TVM) has ceased broadcasting live parliamentary sessions, reports Miadhu.

On discovering the lack of broadcasting, Majlis Speaker Abdulla Shahid suspended the session and expressed his displeasure that TVM had not broadcast any session live despite having cameras in the chamber.

Shahid declared that parliament would organise its own broadcast, with technical assistance from TVM until new technicians could be trained. Live feed will be provided to all

Under the new agreement live feed would now be provided to TV stations and until Parliament could train its own technical crew, TVM would lend their technicians for the task.

The public broadcaster said it was “unrealistic” for the station to provide live telecasting as the government had not provided it ay financial assistance.

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