Author: JJ Robinson

Slashed journalist claims attack was targeted assassination by Islamic radicals

Ismail ‘Hilath’ Rasheed got out his mobile phone and called for a taxi, but no sound came from his throat.

Instead the Maldivian blogger, journalist and former Amnesty prisoner of conscience, infamous for his willingness to tackle taboo subjects, particularly religious tolerance – felt air escaping from his neck.

“A very bad kind of panic came at that moment. I knew my trachea was cut. I knew it was a deep cut, and not just on the surface of the skin,” the journalist told Minivan News, prior to fleeing his own country in fear of his life.

Moments before, on the evening of June 4, Rasheed had turned into the dark alleyway leading to the door of his apartment block to find a man in a yellow shirt waiting for him.

“Then I heard someone call me by name from behind, and two more entered the alley. As I was turning the guy in a yellow T-shirt came up beside me, grabbed me from behind, put a mid-size box cutter to my neck and started slashing.

“I put my hand up to try and stop him, but he kept slashing.”

Rasheed holds up his hand – besides the jagged slash mark across his neck that almost claimed his life, the blogger lost a digit of his index finger trying to protect himself from the knife.

“That was why they missed a vital artery. I tried to prevent it – they cut the finger to the bone.”

Job done, the three men walked “very calmly” out of the alley in separate directions, leaving Rasheed to bleed to death in the alley.

“I got a look at their faces, but it was too dark to identify them,” he says. “They all had beards, and they were very young – I would say between 18 and 24. When the man in the yellow shirt was slashing my throat I smelled his breath – it smelled of alcohol.”

Acting on instinct, Rasheed held his neck and did not let go.

“I didn’t know how bad it was – because it was a box cutter, it was a very clean cut – it wasn’t painful,” he says.

“I thought about going upstairs to inform my parents, but I thought I better go straight to hospital rather than go up all the stairs.”

Leaving the alleyway, holding his head down to prevent blood loss, Rasheed tried to flag down a passing motorcycle. In the distance, he saw two of his attackers ride away on a motorcycle, while the walked round the corner.

“I knew it was pointless to go after them as I needed to get to the hospital,” he recalls.

Three motorcycles passed without stopping to help him, even though the front of his shirt and trousers were by now drenched in blood. That was when he tried to call the taxi, only to realise the extent of his injury.

“Even at that moment, a thought came into my mind. All the people who brought change to the world, most of them died for that cause – they didn’t live to see the fruits of their effort.

“When this thought came into my mind, survival instinct took over and I felt a rage: ‘I am going to survive, I want to live to see the fruits of my work – the fight for human rights,’” he tells Minivan News.

A young couple walking down the street noticed him – and the girl began screaming. A young man on a motorcycle motorcyclist heard the sound as he came around the corner, and stopped so Rasheed could get on behind him.

“I was still holding my neck, and not talking, and pointed in the direction of the hospital. With my right hand I held onto his shoulder – I was afraid I might faint because of the blood loss and fall off. There was so much blood – there was a pool forming in front of me.”

Fighting off unconsciousness, Rasheed stumbled into the lobby of ADK hospital, the young man behind him.

“I was very appreciative but I couldn’t talk to thank him,” Rasheed says. “Because I couldn’t say thank you I just gave him a thumbs up and walked into the hospital. A doctor later said the guy promptly fainted in the doorway.”

Still holding his neck, Rasheed walked into the the emergency room: “The people waiting in the lobby started screaming as I went passed – I think they were shocked,” he says.

A Maldivian girl and a couple of foreign nurses took Rasheed to a bed – “I saw a lot of ADK officials and police officers coming in. The Maldivian girl asked me to show them the injury. I knew I had to show them the extent of the damage so they knew what kind of treatment was needed,” he says.

“I lifted my head all the way back. And quickly back down. A doctor later told me that a nurse and a police officer fainted.”

The foreign nurses quickly inserted a tube into his neck so he could breathe, and pressed bandages to his neck to try and stem the blood loss.

The staff put him on a bed and rushed him to the operating theatre.

“They gave me anaesthetic. It took a while for it to work, but I didn’t feel any pain. I could see them opening my neck, putting their hand inside. I knew they were trying to assess the damage and from what they were saying, that my trachea was severed.”

The hospital kept Rasheed under anesthetic for 48 hours – “they didn’t want to wake me up,” he says.

“My father later told me that I happened to go into the hospital when the new shift was coming in All the old shift doctors stayed on – there were 6-8 of them. My father said at that moment they told him that I had a less than one percent chance of survival, but that they would try everything they could.”

Rasheed was later told by friends who had gathered outside the operating theatre that while he was undergoing emergency surgery, one of the men who had attacked and hospitalised him during a protest for religious tolerance on December 10 – Human Rights Day – came and waited outside the emergency room.

“A relative spotted him and asked him what he was doing there – he said he was there for scans – so the relative asked him why he was waiting in front of emergency. He was the guy who attacked me with a stone on December 10 and fractured my skull, and his excuse was that he was there for a scan,” Rasheed says.

That was the first of several unsettling incidents to happen while Rasheed was in hospital. Conscious of security concerns, ADK staff forbade access to Rasheed for all apart from his parents.

“While I was under anesthetic, I was told by a friend of a friend – a gang member – that someone had been sent into the hospital to kill me – to pull the plug. Nobody would have noticed,” Rasheed says.

“This bearded guy came into the Intensive Care Unit posing as my father. While he was near me a doctor who knew my father just happened to come into the ICU. The doctor was suspicious, and asked him who he was – he said he was my father. The doctor said ‘I know Hilath’s father, you are not his father,’ and called security to have him thrown out. He’s on the hospital’s CCTV footage.”

Four days later, Rasheed woke up on a ventilator, astounding doctors at his miraculous recovery.

“They said they had never seen anyone recover so fast from such an injury,” he says.

Rasheed has no doubt in his mind as to the motivation behind his attack – the third in just a few months. The attack was unusual in that most of the wave of recent gang stabbings in the Maldives have involved multiple stab wounds to different parts of the body – targeted throat slashing is new.

In July 2009, Rasheed broke news of a story on his blog concerning an under-age girl allegedly being kept by a family as a ‘jaariya’ – a concubine. Concerns were initially raised when the girl was taken to Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) and was found to be pregnant.

“Ever since I reported the story on my blog I have received death threats. Things like: ‘If we see you on street we will slash your throat’, ‘we will behead you’, ‘don’t walk in a dark alley,’ things like that,” says Rasheed.

One of only several Maldivian bloggers to write under his own name, Rasheed courted controversy by continuing to tackle taboo subjects in the Maldives – particularly religious intolerance, and the constitutional provision that all Maldivians were required to be ‘100 percent Sunni Muslim’. This was at odds, Rasheed argued, with the country’s Sufi history and new-found commitment to freedom of expression – which had ironically, he argued, also given a voice to more extreme interpretations of the religion.

The attitude of many to Rasheed’s work was summarised in comments made by spokesperson for former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and newly-appointed Minister for Human Resources, Mohamed ‘Mundhu’ Shareef, who told AFP following the attempt on the blogger’s life that while the government condemned the attack, “Hilath must have known that he had become a target of a few extremists.”

“We are not a secular country. When you talk about religion there will always be a few people who do not agree,” Shareef said.

Both the administrations of Nasheed and Waheed showed little interest in prosecuting those who threatened and attacked Rasheed – regardless of the number of photos and witnesses.

“I reported the threats to police. In fact an intelligence officer met me after the concubine story. Nothing came of it. The man who attacked me with the stone on December 10 – there were photos of him, I gave his identity and everything. Police never arrested him, and as far as I know he’s still roaming free around Male.”

Police are investigating the latest attack on Rasheed, but despite claiming to have access to CCTV footage of the area, no arrests had been made at time of press. Police Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef told Minivan News that while the investigation was proceeding, the case was “sensitive”.

The reason for that, Rasheed says, “is very obvious.”

“This coup government is collaborating with Islamic extremists. The extremists together with the Adhaalath party are now in power. I don’t think they will arrest my three attackers, even this time, and I don’t think I will get justice as long as Waheed’s coup government is in power,” the blogger says.

Days before the attempt on his life, Rasheed and a friend were passing the Furqan mosque in Male’ on their way to the swimming tracks. Six members of the same gang who attacked him on December 10 – who were inside setting up a sermon – came out and began punching him in the face.

“They cornered me, and pushed me into the wall. And started punching my face. As they were punching me I told them I had repented and was a Muslim. One of them said: ‘We don’t know that. You have to make a public announcement that you are a Muslim. Otherwise we will kill you.’”

The sight of a passing police jeep caused the group to cease their attack and scatter – “apart from one. He was one of those who threw stones on December 10,” Rasheed says. “Right in front of the police, he punched me in the face.”

The police saw the incident, came out of the jeep and arrested his attacker, says Rasheed.

“They asked me and my friend to come to the police station. We filed a case. That night they took him to court and extended his detention by five days.”

However while Rasheed was at home one of the gang members “called me, and told me to withdraw the case, and that in return I would never be attacked by Maldivian Wahabis again.”

The following morning Rasheed went to the police station and withdrew the case. He rang the gang member, “who said he was very happy.”

“A few days later this happened,” says Rasheed, pointing to his scarred throat. “I guess they are not good at keeping their word,” he laughs bitterly.

While Rasheed cannot identify his attackers in the June 4 attack, he claims that besides calling out his name, the assailants told him the attack was “compliments” of three senior political and religious figures in the country.

“I was told by a friend of these gang members that [two of these figures] met this gang and told them to murder me, and that it would not be a sin, and that in fact they would go to heaven because I had blogged about freedom of religion and gay rights,” Rasheed says.

“The friend also told me via the gang member that the extremists have drawn up a list of MDP members and supporters who are advocating secularism on Facebook and Twitter. I haven’t seen this list, but I’m told it exists. I have advised all my friends to be extra careful about their personal safety.”

Both sides of the political spectrum in the Maldives have on occasion accused the other of employing gangs for political purposes, such as attending and disrupting political rallies, in exchange for money and alcohol. However, Rasheed’s allegation that radicalisation is now being used as a control technique is new.

“These gangs are very easy to radicalise,” Rasheed explains. “They have committed all kinds of evil acts and sins, and it is very easy to brainwash them. These Sheikhs go and tell them that because they have done all these activities, the only way for them to get salvation is to subordinate themselves to Allah and undertake jihad against secularists and unbelievers. It is very easy.

“I think because the Islamists are now in power these people feel powerful and immune, and protected by this new culture of impunity. They are doing what they want to do, and what they are told to do. As long as this coup government is in power, this country will be lawless with gangs and Islamic extremists dictating our lives and murdering their opponents who disagree with them.”

Some of the more conservative Sheikhs have even privately expressed concern about the growing radicalisation of gang members, Rasheed says.

“One of them told a relative of mine that it was a disgrace – that these were gang members, taking heroin, abusing alcohol, that they were just criminals posing as Salafis,” says Rasheed.

“He said he was really concerned about groups taking over mosques because it was giving a bad name to Salaf and all the other Wahabis.”

International response

The attack on Rasheed has been widely condemned by international human rights NGOs, as the first apparently targeted murder attempt of a journalist in the Maldives.

Several human rights NGOs raised the attack during a recent debate at the UN Human Rights Council with UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Frank La Rue.

During the debate, NGOs led by the Centre for Inquiry and the International Humanist and Ethical Union criticised the growing “climate of intolerance and impunity for such crimes” in the Maldives.

“The government of the Maldives has made no effort to arrest Rasheed’s attackers despite credible photographic evidence of the attack,” the NGOs contended, expressing alarm at the growing influence of extremists in the Maldives.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned the blocking of Rasheed’s blog – www.hilath.com – in 2011 by Communications Authority of the Maldives (CAM) on the order of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. The Ministry had made the request on the grounds that the site contained anti-Islamic material.

Rasheed at the time described the crack-down as “just the beginning”, claiming there was no material on it that contradicted his Sufi interpretation of Islam.

“If Sunni Muslims are the conservatives, then the Sufi Muslims are the liberals,” he told Minivan News. “I think this is a conservative attack on the site. They think if you’re not a Sunni, you’re an unbeliever.”

After his attack, RSF issued a statement noting that it had “all the hallmarks of a targeted murder attempt.”

“Rasheed has made many enemies through his outspoken blogging. The authorities in charge of the investigation should not rule out the possibility that this was linked to his journalistic activity. He is a well-known journalist who has repeatedly been censored, arrested and threatened.

“The police must, as a matter of urgency, put a stop to the harassment of Rasheed and take the issue of his safety seriously. Any lack of response on their part will constitute a criminal failure to assist a person in danger,” RSF stated.

Amnesty International also issued a statement, noting that “religious groups opposed to Ismail Rasheed’s long campaign for religious freedom are suspected of being behind the attack.”

“People linked to these groups hit him with stones in December 2011, fracturing his skull, because he had arranged a rally to call for religious tolerance. Although that attack took place in front of onlookers and there is photographic evidence that can be used to identify the attackers, no one has yet been brought to justice for that attack,” Amnesty said.

For his part, Rasheed is no longer in the Maldives and has said he has no specific plans to return.

“In my opinion, I can never return to the Maldives. Right now, with the coup government hand-in-hand with Maldivian extremists, I believe the Maldives is a terrorist state. We need elections as soon as possible to bring back democracy,” he said.

The apparently newfound willingness of some politicians to use radicalised groups for political gain was “a devil’s pact”, Rasheed warned.

“Expect more political murders in the near future. It is not just me they want to get rid of – there are a lot of people. I forsee a lot of bloodshed.”

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

MMPRC to open department of social media

The Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) has opened a social media department to promote the Maldives on networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Head of the MMPRC, Mohamed Maleeh Jamal, told Minivan News that the new ‘Digital and Social Media’ department would aim to establish the Maldives as a “strong presence in the social and digital sphere.”

“Social networks have been under-utilised in the Maldives [as marketing tool] in the past,” Maleeh said, adding that the department would also work on search engine optimisation for the destination.

MMPRC staff will be trained to use the networks for marketing purposes and would attend the Digital and Social Media Conference in London in November, he said.

Dismissing potential criticism that the new approach was a ‘Department of Facebook’, Maleeh explained that social media was a cost-effective marketing tool that would enable greater sharing of positive messages about the destination, especially given its popularity with international – and tweeting – celebrities.

“Honeymooners are a key market for the Maldives, and social media users are quite young. It is good if we can occupy a space in their mind when they are booking their honeymoon,” Jamal explained.

Furthermore, “all other major destination promoters are is doing it, and we don’t want to be left out,” he said.

The Maldives was very social media-savvy, Maleeh noted, with a ‘social media population’ of around 50,000.

“If one person sends out a positive message, that is worth millions of rufiya in word-of-mouth marketing. Visitors are also very loyal – 25 percent are repeat visitors,” he added.

According to Facebook statistics, there are 123,280 active Facebook users in the Maldives – a third of the population. The vast majority of these – 113,760 – are under the age of 35. Sixty percent of all Maldivian Facebook users are male.

While Facebook has been popular in the Maldives for many years, Twitter use has exploded following the controversial transfer of power on February 7. Tags such as #mvcoup are full of furious exchanges between bloggers, activists, politicians and office holders.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

May arrivals drop 1.4 percent on 2011 figures

The Maldives recorded a 1.4 percent drop in arrivals in May, compared to the same period last year.

Overall arrivals for January to May 2012 were up 1.7 percent on the same period last year. However according to figures from the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), while South Asia was the second fastest growing market reporting 14 percent year-on-year growth in March in terms of visitor volume, the Maldives was the only destination to record a decline (five percent).

Figures released by the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) for May showed sharp dips across many emerging and traditional markets, including Central and Eastern Europe (-12.7 percent), Northern Europe (-15.8 percent), Southern Europe (-32 percent) and North East Asia (-1.1 percent).

Russia, a key emerging market for the Maldives, showed a decline of 17.4 percent in arrivals for May, while the country’s largest and formerly fastest-growing market, China, recorded an 8.5 percent increase.

Core traditional markets showed double-digit decreases in arrivals for May, particularly Italy (-39.1 percent), the UK (-16.5 percent) and Korea (-42.5 percent).

“Traditionally, tour operators experience a drop in bookings and travel during big soccer events, and with the UK also taking part in Euro 2012, chances are more people might be distracted from thinking about a summer break during this period. Also, the upcoming Olympic Games during July will also impact long haul travel,” the MMPRC stated.

Western Europe meanwhile showed signs of rapid recovery, led by exceptional growth in German arrivals (30.5 percent) to 9736 for the month – comfortably putting it in second place behind China in terms of volume.

In an accompanying statement, the MMPRC speculated that the reasons for the increase in arrivals “are the strong economic conditions in Germany together with the increase in frequency of flights between the two countries.”

The average occupancy rate at the country’s resorts fell from 80.7 to 66.2 percent for May, but this pattern was in line with 2011 as the country’s low season sets in. However, average occupancy rates for resorts in 2012 were down 5-6 percent on 2011 for February to April.

“MMPRC is in line with the set target of attracting 1 million tourists during 2012,” the corporation said. “A strategic digital and social media campaign is in place. Road shows and other strategic marketing activities are being planned for the year ahead. Maldives Marketing & PR Corporation has a policy to carry out joint promotions and marketing campaigns with airlines, tour operators and other stakeholders.”
Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Ameen-Aslam report published in English

The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) have released an English version of their report detailing the behind-the-scenes actions of the police and security services during the controversial transfer of power of February 7.

The report, produced by former Environment Minister Mohamed Aslam and former National Security Advisor Ameen Faisal, was labelled an “act of terrorism” by the government due to its extensive use of intelligence sources and serving police and MNDF officials.

Chief Superintendent Mohamed Hameed was subsequently arrested, while other police officers who had cooperated with the report were rounded up and detained, and their houses searched.

Police initially denied the allegations of a “witch hunt” and issued a statement accusing the media of “circulating baseless and false reports”. However court warrants for the arrest of Hameed and Staff Sergeant Ahmed Naseer were subsequently leaked.

The report outlines what the MDP government knew of the then-opposition’s plan to topple the government by soliciting “about 500 police officers” to protest in the Republic Square, that led to former President Mohamed Nasheed’s resignation “under duress” on February 7.

The report alleged that in September 2011 council members of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) met with a retired Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) warrant officer (grade one), a retired brigadier general and a retired deputy police commissioner at the apartment of PPM council member Ahmed ‘Mars’ Saleem to discuss ways to topple the government.

At the meeting, the report stated, the retired warrant officer proposed that “the only way to change President Nasheed’s government” was for “about 500 police officers to come out and protest at the Republic Square”.

“During these discussions, when the retired deputy police commissioner gave assurances that it could be done, PPM interim deputy leader Umar Naseer raised doubts [about the possibility],” the report claimed.

However, following extensive discussions, “it was decided that work would begin on creating an atmosphere for [a police-led protest at Republic square].”

The report further claimed that the “December 23 coalition” of eight political parties and affiliated NGOs – which staged a mega-protest to “Defend Islam” from the alleged “securalisation agenda” of President Nasheed – was formed as a result of “a lengthy discussion” at the Adhaalath Party office between a prominent religious scholar and the aforementioned warrant officer.

The ‘mega-protest’ was meanwhile primarily funded by Jumhoree Party (JP) Leader and tycoon MP Gasim Ibrahim, the report claimed.

The party also released an English version of former MDP Chairperson Mariya Ahmed Didi’s list of criminal charges against President Mohamed Waheed.

Download the Ameen-Aslam Report (English)


Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

UK couple awarded £10,000 settlement after salmonella poisoning at Maldives resort

A couple from Gwent in the UK have been awarded a £10,000 (US$15,600) settlement after contracting salmonella poisoning during a two week stay at Summer Island Village in 2008, according to reports in UK media.

According a report in the UK’s Metro newspaper, the couple, Scott and Leane Beasant, successfully sued tour operator Cosmos after complaining that “the rooms were dirty, the food undercooked and the water supply was cut off so they could not use the toilet.”

“The only time they left their room was to go to hospital for a series of tests to confirm their illness,” Metro reported.

“We were both absolutely terrified as to what was happening to us. We complained to staff and tour reps but no one seemed to listen,” Scott Beasant told the South Wales Argus.

The fabrication welder reportedly lost 9.5 kilograms in five days due to the illness, while Leane, an occupational health technician, was unable to work for three months due to diarrhoea and abdominal cramps. The couple were also informed they would be unable to proceed with planned IVF treatment, the Argus reported.

“When we returned home I was diagnosed with salmonella poisoning and we couldn’t believe it. What happened in those two weeks has had a serious negative impact on the rest of my life,” Scott Beasant told the paper.

Tour operator Cosmos Holidays confirmed to the Metro that it had reached a settlement with the couple.

Minivan News contacted Summer Island Village for comment and was awaiting a response from the resort’s lawyers at time of press.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Maldives on Tier 2 Watch List for Human Trafficking three years running

The Maldives has appeared on the US State Department’s Tier Two Watch List for Human Trafficking for the third year in a row.

Having “not demonstrated evidence of increasing efforts to address human trafficking over the previous year”, the country only narrowly avoided a descent to Tier 3 – the worst category – after presenting a written plan that, “if implemented, would constitute making significant efforts to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.”

Particular areas of criticism included “a lack of systematic procedures for identifying victims of trafficking among vulnerable populations, and not taking sufficient law enforcement steps or concrete actions to protect trafficking victims and prevent trafficking in Maldives.”

“Counter-trafficking efforts are impeded by a lack of understanding of the issue, a lack of legal structure, and the absence of a legal definition of trafficking.”

The report noted that in 2011, “13 suspected victims of human trafficking and two suspected human traffickers were intercepted and deported in three cases of human trafficking identified at the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA).”

The Maldivian government’s response to trafficking victims was to deport them, the report noted, without providing access to services “such as shelter, counseling, medical care, or legal aid.”

“It did not provide foreign victims with legal alternatives to their removal to countries where they might face hardship or retribution,” the report noted. “Authorities did not encourage victims to participate in the investigation or prosecution of trafficking offenders. Due to a lack of comprehensive victim identification procedures, the government may not have ensured that migrants subjected to forced labor and prostitution were not inappropriately incarcerated, fined, or otherwise penalised for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of [their] being trafficked.”

The Maldives made some progress towards prevention, the report noted, including the approval of an Anti-Trafficking plan in March 2012 and the establishment of an Anti Human-Trafficking and People Smuggling Unit in January 2012.

However, despite an operation in April 2011 by police and immigration into an “unknown number” of ongoing cases involving fraudulent recruitment, the deportation of two foreigners as a result and the raid and closure of several recruitment agencies by court order on suspicion of fraud and forgery, “no labour recruiter or broker was punished or fined for fraudulent recruitment practices.”

The Maldives is mainly flagged as a destination country for victims of labour exploitation, particularly from Bangladesh and to a lesser extent, India, but was noted as a destination for sex trafficking.

“An unknown number of the 80,000 to 110,000 foreign workers that government officials estimate are currently working in Maldives – primarily in the construction and service sectors – face conditions indicative of forced labor: fraudulent recruitment, confiscation of identity and travel documents, withholding or nonpayment of wages, or debt bondage,” the 2012 report notes.

“According to a diplomatic source, an estimated 50 percent of Bangladeshi workers in Maldives are not documented and a number of these workers are victims of trafficking. Migrant workers pay the equivalent of US$1,000 to US$4,000 in recruitment fees in order to migrate to Maldives,” the State Department said.

“In addition to Bangladeshis and Indians, some migrants from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Nepal reportedly experienced recruitment fraud before arriving in Maldives. Recruitment agents in source countries generally collude with employers and agents in Maldives to facilitate fraudulent recruitment and forced labor of migrant workers,” the report added.

The Maldives’ expatriate population makes up almost a third of the country’s population. Minivan News previously reported in 2010 that the scale of labour trafficking in the Maldives was so disproportionately vast that the revenue generated made it the second greatest source of foreign currency to the economy after tourism, eclipsing fishing.

In addition, a smaller number of women were trafficked from Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, China, the Philippines, Eastern Europe, and former Soviet Union countries and Bangladesh for sex work in Male’.

The new government has closed down many illegal brothels in Male’ since coming to power, with nearly a dozen reported raids of so-called ‘beauty salons’. The expatriate women arrested during these raids are typically quickly deported, however there have been few reports of brothel owners being prosecuted.

“Some reports indicate that internal sex trafficking of Maldivian girls,” the report noted. “Maldivian children are transported to Male from other islands for forced domestic service, and a small number were reportedly sexually abused by the families with whom they stayed. This is a corruption of the widely acknowledged practice where families send Maldivian children to live with a host family in Male for educational purposes.”

‘Cash bounties’

The State Department’s report was swiftly followed by news articles in local media this week claiming that private companies and individuals had begun posting ‘cash bounties’ for absconded expatriate workers.

According to a report in Sun Online, notices had been posted in cafes windows and garages offering rewards of between Rf1000 (US$65) and Rf3000 (US$195) for information leading to the whereabouts of foreign nationals in hiding.

“We let people paste announcements when they request for it. We don’t ask who they are or anything,” a garage employee told the publication, when asked about one such notice.

Immigration officials and police quickly condemned the practice.

Police Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef told Minivan News that while police had received no official reports of the posters, a journalist had raised the matter in a press conference. Posting such notices was illegal, he said, and opened those responsible to charges of harassment.

An official from the Immigration Department also expressed surprise at the reports.

“We did not know that was going on. It is absolutely against international human rights,” he said, adding that it the matter would be examined.

Standard practice among employers in the Maldives has been required to post the photographs and details of missing and absconded expatriate workers in the local newspaper – on most days, the pages include rows of such faces. However the Immigration official emphasised that no money was offered as an incentive for locating the missing workers.

“I think somebody is playing politics,” he said, of the report of cash bounties. “The US State Department released its report three days ago. We’re still on the watch list. My thinking is that somebody [put up the posters] to tarnish our reputation.”

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Who turned out the light: Maldives’ solar ambitions plunged into darkness

On the afternoon of February 7, 2012, the Maldives was set to sign into existence a plan that would have revolutionised the country’s energy sector, immediately attracting US$200 million of risk-mitigated renewable energy investment.  It was proposed that investment would eventually reach US$2-3 billion – a gigantic step towards the country’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2020.

The Scaling-Up Renewable Energy Program (SREP) proposal was produced by the Renewable Energy Investment Office (REIO) under President Mohamed Nasheed’s administration, and driven by Nasheed’s Energy Advisor Mike Mason – an unpaid position.

Mason, a UK national, former mining engineer and expert on renewable energy, carbon finance and offsetting, collected and analysed data on energy use and the existing diesel infrastructure across the Maldives.

He discovered that the Maldives was facing an energy crisis that was as much economic as it was existential.

The greater Male’ region generates 30 MW, with a further 8-10 MW for industrial purposes, while government utilities across the island chain generate a further 18 MW. The tourist resorts privately produce and consume 70 MW.

All this power – and the fuel that propels the country’s fishing and transport fleet – is generated through imported oil. Importing that fuel cost approximately US$240 million in 2011, a figure projected to increase to US$350 million in 2012. That represents 20 percent of the country’s entire GDP, at a time the Maldives is facing a foreign currency shortage, plummeting investor confidence, spiraling expenditure, a drop off in foreign aid and a crippling budget deficit of 27 percent.

The SREP plan reveals the scale of the problem: “If the oil price rises to $150/bbl by 2020, and consumption grows by four percent per annum, oil imports are expected to reach around US$700 million – or almost US$2,000 per head of population.

“This is clearly unsustainable. Decarbonisation is at least as much a matter of national economic security and social welfare as it is a matter of environmental concern,” the report notes.

Energy revolution

Former Energy Advisor Mike Mason

Mason calculated that solar photovoltaic (PV) could be supplied directly to consumers at US$0.23 per kWh during the day, but only at US$0.44 per kWh from batteries at night. However an optimum mix of solar, battery and wind could supply 80 percent of power requirements at US$0.36 per kWh. Biomass could be supplied to Male at US$0.16 per kWh, or US$0.20 a kWh including capital.

Mason compared this to the volatile cost of import-dependent diesel generation, which ranged from US$0.28 per kWh hour in Male’, and up to US$0.70 per kWh on some of the most inefficient islands.

Existing solar initiatives in the Maldives, such as the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)’s 675 kWh of solar panelling on schools and other public facilities across Male’, were “stupidly priced, uneconomic, symbolic, and don’t address the problem of energy storage,” Mason noted. He also proposed that large scale wind generation suffered from extreme seasonal variability and risked impacting the stability of the grid.

Mason concluded that the most realistic and commercially-viable renewable option was to run 90 percent of the country on solar supplemented by small-scale wind power, while a 24 megawatt biomass plant could provide the baseload of the greater Male’ region at more than 40 percent less than existing rates.

The pricing was attractive, but the challenge was attracting the significant upfront capital investment required: “with renewables, on day one you buy 20 years of electricity,” Mason explained.

Attracting this capital investment was therefore crucial, however “because of its political history and economic inheritance, the Government of Maldives is poorly placed to raise capital at normal ‘sovereign’ rates of interest,” the SREP report noted.

This was to be a key innovation in Mason’s proposal: rather than pour donor funding into myriad haphazard capital-intensive renewable energy projects, Mason’s plan was to instead use the available World Bank and Asia Development Bank funding to dramatically reduce the commercial and sovereign risks for foreign investors, lowering the cost of capital to attractive levels comparable to other countries.

“In practice, the guarantees may not be needed for all projects or by all developers, and once the Maldives becomes an established destination for renewable development finance the need for guarantees is expected to diminish,” the SREP proposal notes.

“Right now the cost of capital, if you are in Germany, is very low. In a country like the Maldives, it is stupidly high,” Mason explained to Minivan News.

“If [the Maldives] wants to get somewhere it has to take out the risk – at least risks not in control of the investor. If you can do that, then the cost of capital drops to 6-7 percent – about the same as a powerplant [in the West]. The whole thing becomes economic – the sensible thing to do – rather than a matter of subsidies,” he explained.

The World Bank team working on the project had given verbal approval for the plan, describing it as one of the most “exciting and transformative” projects of its kind in any country, according to Mason.

“It was a shoo-in. But the coup happened the day we were due to submit it – later that very day, in fact,” he said.

Amid the disintegrating political situation, the decision was made to suspend the submission.

“The whole point of the plan was to take out the instability. The thing about a coup is that it takes that model and turns it upside down,” Mason told Minivan News.

As the political instability increased, so did the cost of capital. Investors who had been “queuing up” made their excuses.

In an email exchange, incoming President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan requested that Mason continue with the submission and remain in his current position as Energy Advisor.

Mason chose to resign.

“I don’t think Dr Waheed is a bad man – actually I like him a lot personally,” he wrote, in an email to an official in the Trade Ministry obtained by Minivan News. “However, he has done nothing to assure me that this is really a democratic process. Rather, my intelligence tells me this is a Gayoom inspired coup with Dr. Waheed as an unfortunate puppet.”

Mason added that if the new government sought political accommodation with the MDP, made “a concerted attempt to remove the corrupt judiciary”, and ceased police brutality “so that people can walk the streets freely as in any other civilised country”, “then I will be back on side in the blink of an eye.”

“I have given the best part of my life to this over the last 18 months, but I fear I have a set of democratic and moral principles that override other considerations,” Mason stated.

President Waheed responded on March 23:

“It would be nice if you listened to something other than Nasheed’s propaganda. He is free to go anywhere he wants and say what ever he wants,” Waheed wrote.

“Have you ever thought that Nasheed could have made a stupid mistake under the influence of what ever he was on and blown everything away? I thought you had more intelligence than to think that I am someone’s puppet and Maldives is another dictatorship,” the President said.

Further emails obtained by Minivan News show that Waheed’s new government was interested in continuing with the submission of the SREP plan.

“I am certain that this is the wrong time to press ahead with the SREP IP. It relies at its heart on getting the cost of capital down by reducing risk,” wrote Mason, to a government official.

“That is not believable in an atmosphere in which [airport developer] GMR is being attacked as an investor in infrastructure; the legal system is, frankly, corrupt so contracts cannot be relied upon; the politics are (in the most charitable possible interpretation) a major risk factor; and the President has no parliamentary party of consequence. I also doubt that the SREP sub-committee will approve funding the plan as they too will see through the plan to the problems (or at least they should if they are any good),” he wrote.

“If things clear up, and faith in democracy and the rule of law is restored than a second go at this would be worth while – but meantime I am sceptical. A much more limited and less ambitious plan – say for the smaller islands only, might fly.”

The very premise of the plan – mitigating investor risk – had been scuttled by the political upheaval and both domestic and international challenges to the legitimacy of Waheed’s government, said Mason.

“Even if I did work with Waheed, I couldn’t deliver the plan now [because of falling] investor confidence,” he told Minivan News. “[The perpetrators] have destroyed US$2-3 billion worth of investment and condemned the country to an unstable economic future based upon diesel.”

Climate of crisis

Earlier this month President’s Office Spokesperson Abbas Adil Riza said the new government would “not completely” reverse the previous government’s zero carbon strategy: “What we are aiming to do is to elaborate more on individual sustainable issues and subject them to national debate. Previously, these discussions on sustainability were not subjected to a national debate, such as through parliament,” Riza said.

President Waheed last week attended the Rio +20 summit and announced the Maldives’ intentions to become the world’s largest marine reserve in five years.

During his speech in Rio, Waheed also pledged that the Maldives would “cover 60 percent of our electricity needs with solar power, and the rest with a combination of biofuels, other clean technologies and some conventional energy.”

“Progress towards achieving these goals is slow because of the huge financial and technological investments involved. If we are, as a global community, committed to the concept of transitioning to a green economy, then developing countries will need significant financial and technical support,” the President stated, going on to appeal for financial assistance.

“A small island state like the Maldives cannot, on its own, secure the future we want. We rely on our international partners to ensure that their development paths are sustainable and don’t negatively impact on vulnerable countries like the Maldives,” Waheed said.

Former President Nasheed’s Climate Change Advisor – UK-based author, journalist and environmental activist Mark Lynas, who drew a monthly stipend of Rf10,000 (US$648) for expenses – told Minivan News that the loss of democratic legitimacy in the Maldives had destroyed its ability to make a moral stand on climate change-related issues, and be taken seriously.

“I think that the Maldives is basically a has-been in international climate circles now,” Lynas said.

“The country is no longer a key player, and is no longer on the invite list to the meetings that matter. Partly this is a reflection of the political instability – other countries no longer have a negotiating partner that they know and understand,” he said.

“Partly, I think it is because of the lack of democratic legitimacy of the current regime – in the climate negotiations the entire ask of the small island and vulnerable countries is based on their moral authority to speak on behalf of those who are most suffering from the impacts of climate change.

“Yet Waheed and his representatives have no moral authority because they were not elected, have strong connections with corrupt and violent elements of the former dictatorship, and took power in the dubious circumstances of a police coup,” Lynas argued.

The government’s high expenditure on international public firms such as Ruder Finn – also responsible for the Philip Morris campaign disputing the health hazards of smoking – had further undermined its credibility with journalists across the world, Lynas said.

“Journalists and others are aware that the Waheed regime has hired PR agencies to act on its behalf – which makes them doubly suspicious. It is widely understood that the Maldives post-coup government has no real interest in the climate issue, but is instead trying to use it as a greenwashing tool in order to buff its credentials abroad and in order to obscure its undemocratic nature at home. I don’t think this will work, as it is hardly very subtle and journalists are not stupid,” said Lynas.

“The Maldives has lost many years of work already – it has little credibility left with donors or international investors. Investors and donors alike are looking for stability and strong governance – and they will not get either of those whilst the political system is essentially deadlocked between competing parties, with regular protests and ensuing police violence.

“In climate terms the Maldives is well on its way to becoming a failed state – I see no prospect of it achieving Nasheed’s 2020 carbon neutral goal, even if that goal is still official policy,” Lynas said. “I think time has basically run out now – unless there are early elections quickly and a legitimate government re-established there is no real prospect of resurrecting the Maldives’ leadership on climate change. By 2013, it will certainly be too late – other countries will have overtaken it and the Maldives will essentially be left behind.”

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Arrest of intelligence chief sign of “growing paranoia”: MDP

Additional reporting by Ahmed Nazeer

The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has issued a statement condemning the arrest of police whistleblowers who cooperated with the production of its report into the controversial transfer of power of February 7.

Police head of intelligence, Chief Superintendent Mohamed Hameed, was arrested on Thursday and detained on Dhoonidhoo.

A police statement alleged that Chief Superintendent Hameed “distributed information obtained pertinent to his tenure as Head of the Intelligence Department, police matters and internal security, along with [providing] misleading information to certain individuals for reaping benefit out of it to drive rift within police officers and the community.”

He was presented to the Criminal Court that afternoon, which extended his detention period by five days. Hameed’s family have appealed the case in the High Court, arguing that his pretrial detention period was extended in violation of the law as Hameed was arrested over a disciplinary issue and not a criminal offence.

Hameed’s lawyer told the court that there were police officers accused of more serious crimes who had not been detained, alleging that in one instance a senior police officer stood accused of attempting to rape a woman and in another incident, influence a judge in a case involving the police officer’s interest.

His lawyer argued that the Criminal Court judge had extended Hameed’s detention period not based on what the police told the judge, but based on the judge’s own view, and that therefore Hameed had lost the right to respond to the accusations.

In response, the prosecution lawyer said that Hameed was accused not of a disciplinary issue but a criminal offence, and contended that the Criminal Court judge had declared Hameed a threat to society because police told the judge he might seek to influence evidence.

He also noted that the matter involving the police officer accused of rape had been sent to the Prosecutor General’s office.

Several other officers were also reported to have been detained last week, however Police Spokesperson Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef said Hameed was the only officer formally arrested.

The MDP held protests over the weekend calling for Hameed’s release, while a Hameed’s family have appealed the case in the High Court, and said the court was due to issue a verdict later on Sunday evening.

In a statement, MDP Spokesperson Hamid Abdul Ghafoor said the arrest of the Chief Superintendent was “further evidence of the Maldives’ rapid descent into a police state.”

“Brave men and women who wish to stand up for the rule of law, for democracy and for human rights are today subjected to constant threats and intimidation. This purge of police officers who the Government considers possible opponents demonstrates President Waheed’s growing paranoia and the fact that his coalition Government are determined to rule by fear,” Ghafoor said.

“MDP calls on the EU, the US, the UN Human Rights Council and others to urgently enquire into the well-being of these police officers and to hold this illegal government accountable for their growing use of violence and intimidation for political means,” he added.

President’s Office Spokespersons Masood Imad and Abbas Adil Riza were not responding at time of press.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

ACC wades into airport development charge debate

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has issued a statement in support of the government’s bid to obtain concession fees lost due to the legal debacle surrounding the levying of an airport development charge (ADC) by airport developer GMR.

A Civil Court case filed by the then opposition Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) late last year ruled against the charging of an ADC, as stipulated in GMR’s contract with the government-owned Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL).

The court decision compelled the then-ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) to deduct the ADC charges from the concession fees due the government, which was pending appeal prior to the change of government under controversial circumstances on February 7.

However as a result of the DQP’s successful court case while it was in opposition, the government only received US$525,355 out of an expected US$8.7 million in concession fees for the first quarter of 2012.

The Transport Ministry has maintained that the former government’s decision to deduct the fee was illegitimate, initially claiming the authorisation letter was invalid as the new government had reappointed the MACL board, and insisted GMR pay the concession fees due. GMR has maintained that the ADC is chargeable under the terms of its concession agreement, and offered to exempt Maldivian nationals from paying the fee.

In its statement last week, the ACC claimed that according to article 9 of the Public Finance Act, the Finance Minister was not authorised to forgo revenue to the state without submitting the figures to the President under guidelines set by the Auditor General.

The ACC statement alleged that former MACL Chairman ‘Bandhu’ Ibrahim Saleem agreed to deduct the ADC and insurance surcharge without approval from the company’s board. As all three stakeholders had not signed the changes to the agreement, it could not be considered legally binding, the ACC claimed.

The ACC contended that the clauses in the concession agreement (18.2 and 18.3) that allow changes to the contract under certain political circumstances could not be activated as the Civil Court ruling was not a political decision, despite the case being filed by a political party.

That case was filed by DQP in a long-standing campaign against Nasheed’s government awarding the airport redevelopment to GMR. DQP leader Dr Hassan Saeed is now President Mohamed Waheed Hassan’s special advisor, while DQP Vice-President Dr Mohamed Jameel is the new Home Minister.

A 24-page book released by the DQP while it was in opposition presents the government’s lease of Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA) to developer GMR as a threat to local industry that will “enslave the nation and its economy”.

Former President’s Office Press Secretary Mohamed Zuhair at the time of the pamphlet’s publication said that he felt the title’s wording was “very strong”, and drew a faulty comparison between international cooperation for mutual benefit and foreign occupation of a people and market for selfish purposes.

“The purpose of all this is to make Maldivians mistakenly feel like they are under occupation and the country is being sold out,” claimed Zuhair at the time.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)